This Article is From Sep 15, 2022

Opinion: Team Thackeray Gains Big Point Ahead Of Key Mumbai Election

The Uddhav Sena desperately needed a comeback after it was ejected from Maharashtra in June. It has found one - and its young leader, Aaditya Thackeray, is leading from the front, accusing the government that replaced his father's of betrayal.

On Tuesday, it was announced that a $20 billion project for building semi-conductors had been allocated to Gujarat by Vedanta in partnership with Foxconn, the Taiwan corporate.

Maharashtra had been in the running for the project - or at least it believed it was. And the Uddhav Sena has accused the government of Eknath Shinde and the BJP of allowing a golden opportunity to pass into the hands of the PM's home state.

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Aaditya Thackeray (File photo)

Gujarat government said Aaditya Thackeray, and others in the Uddhav Sena have similarly hurled allegations of discrimination against the "Marathi Manoos" (sons of the soil), a complaint that the Sena has patented over decades.

The 20 billion-dollar project, located near Ahmedabad, is expected to create 100,000 jobs and the Gujarat government has said that the joint venture is the largest investment by a corporate in any state.

Embarrassed by the fact that the BJP, which largely runs his government, has gained big - the Vedanta deal has been announced crucially before Gujarat votes for its next government - Eknath Shinde phoned the PM today and expressed sentiments of the state that the project should have gone to Maharashtra.

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Devendra Fadnavis, PM Modi and Eknath Shinde

He says he was assured by the PM that "a large project would be given to Maharashtra soon". As Gujarat Chief Minister, the PM relocated the Tata's Nano project to Gujarat from West Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee led huge protests against the car factory.

Eknath Shinde is right to fret. The all-important election for Mumbai's municipal election, the BMC, is to be held soon, and if he wrests it from the Uddhav Sena, his claim that he controls the real Shiv Sena after his rebellion against its founding family will stand much stronger.

But the PM and his top aide, Amit Shah, must deliver a strong showing in Gujarat, a state the BJP has governed since 1998 and where Arvind Kejriwal is swinging for the fences to establish himself as the runner-up. If he succeeds in diminishing the Congress, he will further his contention of being the main Opposition party, a prospect that is unwelcome for both the BJP and the Congress.

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Arvind Kejriwal in Gujarat

The PM's much-propagated "Gujarat Model" was based on landing projects like the Vedanta - Foxconn 20 billion-dollar investment as front and centre of the model. The dilemma for the top leadership of the BJP: they couldn't be publicly seen as playing favourites with their own state and benefiting it at the expense of Maharashtra. Yet, with the upcoming Gujarat election, the luscious project and its accompanying headlines create a huge talking point for the PM to take to voters.

The Uddhav Sena remains in alliance with the Congress and Sharad Pawar's party, both of which have added to the outrage over losing the Vedanta deal. Ajit Pawar, Leader of the Opposition, has written to Eknath Shinde pointing out that the project was needed for the growth of Maharashtra and jobs. 

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Ajit Pawar (File photo)

Leaders from Maharashtra have a laundry list of projects and headquarters which have been shifted to Gujarat after 2014, when the PM took charge of the country. The list includes shifting of the diamond market from Mumbai to Surat in Gujarat; moving the International Financial Centre to Gujarat's GIFT City from Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex in November 2007 had a huge cost to Maharashtra as it resulted in the diversion of foreign direct investment worth Rs 1.63 lakh crore to Gujarat. The Congress claims that Devendra Fadnavis, who is now Deputy Chief Minister, misled people that an International Financial Centre would also be set up in Mumbai and allowed then Chief Minister Modi to gain benefits.

Maharashtra is the second most industrialised state in India (Tamil Nadu is the first) and has huge anxiety about job creation.

This is what Team Uddhav wants to cash in on. A regional rhetoric with emotive allusions of Maharashtra and Mumbai being sabotaged by "outsiders".

(Swati Chaturvedi is an author and a journalist who has worked with The Indian Express, The Statesman and The Hindustan Times.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.

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