With big ticket projects making a beeline to Gujarat, the new dispensation is under the attack
Maharashtra losing one project after another has enraged the state and raised the political temperature. The latest to go is the TATAs project to aircrafts with Airbus. All these projects have been shifted or relocated to the prime minister's home state Gujarat which is going to the hustings shortly. Gujarat state elections are indeed big reason for the BJP’s focus shifting to it and ignoring the newly gained Maharashtra. Now with these mega projects coming in, the Gujarat BJP unit has something up its sleeve to showcase to the electorate. Its development plank is seriously eroded and the new entrant in the state AAP is making life difficult for it. The prestige of the prime minister is at stake and so the central government would do anything in its power to win the state. BJP state units claim that the center supports it is reinforced with such projects falling in its lap; doesn't matter if they are at the cost of neighboring state. This has
precariously placed the Shinde government which was installed by the BJP by breaking the Shiv Sena. It is embarrassment for him as he is unable to defend the interests of Maharashtra. Sensing the vulnerability of Shinde Shiv Sena's Udhav faction has upped its ante and attacked Shinde for being left out in the cold by his mentors.
To add to the woes of Shinde disgruntled Union minister Nitin Gadkari has made a common cause with Shiv Sena. He has sought investments from the Tata Group in and around Nagpur, citing strengths like infrastructure, land availability, and connectivity in his home city after two mega projects have been taken away to Gujarat. In a letter to Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, Gadkari appealed to him to make investments in Nagpur especially those engaged in businesses like steel, auto, consumer products, IT services, and aviation. The letter shared with the media comes after Maharashtra lost several big-ticket projects to neighbouring Gujarat, including Rs 1.5 lakh crore Foxconn-Vedanta project on chip manufacturing and the `22,000 crore Tata’s aircraft manufacturing project. This also gives credence to stories of differences between Fadnavis and Shinde on several counts. That even senior leaders like Gadkari are pained about Maharashtra's loss would be difficult for the state unit of the BJP to brush aside easily. It is time for Shinde to think out of the box to regain his lost ground else he might lose it all.