At his age, Sharad Pawar should not lie so much: Devendra Fadnavis

MUMBAI: Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis criticised NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar , saying, "At this age, one shouldn't lie so much. Yesterday it was Jairam Ramesh, and today it is Sharad Pawar. During their tenure, Gujarat and Karnataka were number one. Now that Maharashtra has reached number one, they are even more unsettled." Reacting to Pawar's statement at a Baramati rally that the Tata Airbus project was shifted to Gujarat from Maharashtra, Fadnavis, wrote in a post, "Before a false narrative is set, the truth must be told to Maharashtra once again."

He even shared links to various newspaper articles to back his claim that the Tatas never proposed to bring the project to Maharashtra. He said usually the project's location is decided at the time of the MoU, which is a norm. During the MoU, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh were considered. "During this entire period, the state govt was the Maha Vikas Aghadi. When Tata officials visited the MADC office in Nagpur, no one was ready to respond. During the MVA tenure, four locations in Gujarat were finalised for this project as reported in detail," he posted.

Regarding the Foxconn-Vedanta project, he said letters were written to the state during the MVA tenure in May 2022. Inspection at Talegaon was done in June 2022 without approval from the high-level committee and cabinet sub-committee, which never met until June 29, 2022. "After our govt came to power under Eknathrao Shinde, the first letter from Vedanta Group came on July 14. A meeting was held at the CM's office on July 26, and immediately a sub-committee meeting was held, approving a package of 38,000 crores. However, the then industry minister repeatedly said that this project would not come to Maharashtra."