On Wednesday, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi who is in the Nanded district of Maharashtra as part of his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ targeted the Gujarat government ahead of the upcoming State Assembly Elections. He alleged that projects such as the Tata-Airbus military aircraft partnership and the Vendanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant were stolen from Maharashtra and handed to Gujarat ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the neighboring state.
“These projects will be given to two-three industrialists who are the prime minister’s friends, and the country’s wealth is accumulating in their hands. Ports, infrastructure, telecom, agriculture sectors have been given to these people,” the Congress leader said while addressing a rally at Nanded on November 9. Gandhi further went on to criticize the Centre, saying that apart from money, employment and the future of the state’s youth were also being stolen away.
#WATCH | Maharashtra: Your projects are going to Gujarat as Airbus project went from Maharashtra because elections are there in Gujarat. Even the Foxconn project went. Apart from money, jobs & future of state’s youth are also being snatched: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Nanded pic.twitter.com/1NDyEkEyNZ
— ANI (@ANI) November 9, 2022
The Gandhi scion also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of causing an ‘economic tsunami’ by implementing demonetization in November 2016. He also criticized the PM Modi-led union government over demonetization and unemployment during his speech. Meanwhile, the Congress leaders and supporters in the rally could be seen backing Gandhi’s claims by saying, “Gujarat is looting the state of Maharashtra”.
The Congress MP led the Bharat Jodo Yatra in the morning from Biloli in Maharashtra’s Nanded district. The participants, headed by Gandhi, arrived in Maharashtra on Monday night at Deglur in Nanded from the neighboring state of Telangana. Gandhi also visited a Gurdwara in Nanded on Tuesday and stopped momentarily at a few areas to speak with residents who had arrived to meet him.
Maharashtra recently lost two back-to-back mega industrial projects, the Vedanta-Foxconn and Tata-Airbus to Gujarat ahead of the state assembly elections in the neighboring state. While this led to an escalated blame game between the current Eknath Shinde-led government and the former Maha Vikas Aghadi government, the Shinde-Fadnavis government has assured that bigger, better projects, including a textile park, were coming to Maharashtra, the announcement for which is expected early next year.
The legislative Assembly election is scheduled to be held in Gujarat from December 1 to 5 in two phases, to elect 182 members of the 15th Gujarat Legislative Assembly. The votes will be counted and the results will be declared on December 8, 2022.
