Shiv Sena MLA and former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday trained his guns at the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government after the state lost another big-ticket project to Gujarat. The ₹22,000-crore Tata-Airbus project will come up in Vadodara, the Centre announced, despite Maharashtra's ruling coalition’s attempt to house the joint venture at the Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport (MIHAN) in Nagpur.
The announcement came as a major embarrassment for Shinde, who, after losing out on the $19.5 billion Vedanta-Foxconn semi-conductor plant, had made statements assuring that the PM had promised him “bigger and better” projects for Maharashtra.
Thackeray told reporters that the C-295 transport aircraft manufacturing plant was the fourth big project that went out of Maharashtra after the Shinde-Fadnavis government came to power. Reiterating the claim that Shinde’s alliance with the BJP was hurting the state, Thackeray said that the state government engine has failed.
“Not even once I heard from CM that Tata-Airbus project shall come to Maharashtra,” he said, as quoted by ANI. “We are raising our voice despite being in opposition, when we were in power we had raised our voice then too. Had we been in power we would have retained Vedanta Foxconn Plant for Maharashtra.”
In September, Maharashtra industries minister Uday Samant said that Shinde and Fadnavis were likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek his help to get a big project for the state, hinting that it could be the Airbus and Tata joint venture to manufacture C-295 medium transport aircraft as part of the Indian Air Force’s modernisation plan.
{{/usCountry}}In September, Maharashtra industries minister Uday Samant said that Shinde and Fadnavis were likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek his help to get a big project for the state, hinting that it could be the Airbus and Tata joint venture to manufacture C-295 medium transport aircraft as part of the Indian Air Force’s modernisation plan.
{{/usCountry}}Maharashtra was competing with Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh to set up a manufacturing facility for these C-295s.
“Another project! I have voiced this since July, asking Khoke Sarkar to try for it. I wonder why every project is going to other states in the last 3 months. Loss of faith in Khoke Sarkar is evident on industry level. Will the industry minister resign after losing 4 projects?” Aaditya Thackeray wrote in a post on Twitter.