Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis, while interacting with author Priyam Gandhi-Mody, said that while it took them 2.5 years to come to power, when they eventually did, they managed to split two parties in the state.
“After the 2019 election, the tagline I used in my last speech as the CM of the state, ‘Mi Punya Yein’ (I will come back)’ went viral. When despite having majority, we could not form a government, the opposition used it against me. They only captured one line of my speech, which was actually about my vision for the state. It took us long, 2.5 years, but when we returned, we had broken two parties,” Fadnavis said, at the launch of Gandhi-Mody’s book, ‘What If There Was No Congress’.
When the author asked him what if there was no Congress, Fadnavis replied, “In such a scenario, the Partition of the country would not have happened. The country would have never faced terrorism. The development the country is seeing in the past 10 years would have happened way earlier. We could have established our cultural identity many years ago. Mistakes such as implementation of Article 370 would have never happened, which PM Modi corrected.”
Fadnavis believes that after the formation of Maharashtra, for 30-40 years, the politics of the state revolved around 40-50 families. “While some of them had a vision and contributed to the state, most used the government money for themselves and made people of the state dependent on them. These families further started using criminal elements and Bahubalis to establish more control over people.”
Fadnavis also stated that in the past, underworld used to control state politics. “Since the BJP and Modi came to power, the state has seen changes. PM Modi broke that circle of leadership and showed the entire country that politics without bahubalis and money is possible and big leaders, too, can be defeated by common man.”
Fadnavis said while relatives of politicians should join politics, they should get opportunities depending on merit, and not by ignoring deserving candidates. “Despite being the head of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge can’t take decisions on his own. He has to consult Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi. Why did the NCP break? Sharad Pawar developed Ajit Pawar as his natural heir, but later wanted to give the party’s reins to his daughter. Why did the Shiv Sena split? Because Uddhav Thackeray wanted to make his son Aaditya the CM of the state and hence joined hands with unnatural allies.”
“We have seen cross-border terrorism and terror activities in the state. After an attack, the government just condemned it. But when PM Modi did a surgical strike, our neighbours got the idea that this nation could retaliate. Now they can’t dare to attack us,” said Fadnavis, adding the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks were not an attack on only Mumbai, but on the sovereignty of India. “Targets of 26/11 were selected carefully and what we did was we approached America. They didn’t even give us access to main culprits such as David Headley and Tahawwur Rana. The then Congress-led government was weak and dependent on other super nations.”
Fadnavis also took a potshots at Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray on the issue of development of Mumbai city. “The Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, which was in power in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for the past 25 years should show what work they have done for the development of the city, due to which city has been transformed.”
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