MUMBAI: Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday alleged that the BJP government at the Centre was conspiring to reduce the importance of Mumbai and separate it from Maharashtra. He also pointed out that it was under Congress governments that the city’s major infrastructure projects were planned and executed, but the BJP was stealing the credit.
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The Mumbai Congress on Saturday organised a one-day workshop for party workers and leaders at Mulund in suburban Mumbai. Addressing the party workers through a video link, Kharge said that the party could be strong at the national level only if it was strengthened in Mumbai. He also slammed the BJP and state government for the concessions given to industrialists like the Adani group for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.
Kharge’s statement about the central government trying to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra is an echo of the Shiv Sena and Thackeray family’s constant allegations against central governments, most of them Congress, over the years. These allegations came up mainly during the civic polls and, the issue being an emotive one, would get an emotional response from the Marathi manoos. The Congress national president has now mouthed the same line against the Modi government.
The accusations about Mumbai’s importance being undermined has been turned into an election issue by the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the coming Lok Sabha elections. The opposition is aiming to get the votes of the Marathi-speaking population, which is the largest linguistic group in the metropolis followed by North Indians and Gujaratis-Marwaris.
Kharge came down heavily on the BJP government for meting out stepmotherly treatment to Mumbai and Maharashtra. “The BJP is conspiring to reduce the importance of Mumbai, which is an internationally important city and is trying to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra,” he said. “Lakhs of crores of investment was taken away from Mumbai and shifted to other states. ‘Mahanand’, the leading dairy brand, has been handed over to other states. But the BJP-controlled state government in Maharashtra did not raise its voice against this injustice to the state.” Kharge urged Congress workers to communicate all this to the people and ensure that not a single MP of the BJP and its allies won in the Lok Sabha elections from Mumbai.
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has been accusing the Narendra Modi government of conspiring against Mumbai after separating from the BJP in 2019. The Thackeray faction has been citing instances such as the Modi government preferring GIFT city in Gujarat as the International Financial Centre over the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai, shifting of financial institutions to neighbouring states and even the Vedanta Group changing its destination for investment in a semiconductor plant from Maharashtra to Gujarat.
Kharge said that the Congress could be strong at the national level only if it was strengthened in Mumbai. “It is the responsibility of each and every party worker in Mumbai to strengthen the Congress,” he said. “Mumbai and the Congress have an old relationship, as the party was founded here on December 28, 1885. If you forget history, you cannot do anything in the future. It is the responsibility of Congress workers to tell the new generation about what it did for the country. Mumbai became the financial capital of the country and an important financial centre on the international map during the rule of Congress governments.”
Kharge also said that all the important infrastructure projects in Mumbai, including the Bandra-Worli sea link, the Santacruz-Chembur link road, the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) and the Mumbai metro were either planned or constructed during the tenure of chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and prime minister Manmohan Singh. “It was the vision of Congress governments but now the BJP is taking the credit for these projects,” he said.
Senior Congress leader and Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala declared that those leaders who left the party during its time of crisis were traitors and would not be allowed to return to the party in future.
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Mumbai BJP chief and MLA Ashish Shelar said that Kharge’s allegations were “baseless and a poor attempt to connect with the people through emotional issues”. “On the contrary, the BJP governments at the Centre and state took the decision to connect Mumbai with other important cities in the country and within the state,” he said. “The Congress, along with its new alliance partner, had opposed the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train and Mumbai-Delhi corridor project which connected Mumbai with other cities. They also opposed the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Highway project, which connected the capital of Maharashtra with a major city in Vidarbha.”
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