Mumbai: Businessman Gautam Adani has come in the line of fire as cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray train their guns at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti days ahead of the Mumbai civic polls.
The Thackerays have zeroed in on Adani as they raise the pitch of Marathi manoos (signifying the Marathi people) and its marginalisation.”We are not against any one person (Adani) but against the method (of giving everything to one person). The way Mumbai has been given to Adani is wrong,” Uddhav told ThePrint.
On Sunday, at the joint rally of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), MNS chief Raj Thackeray gave a PowerPoint presentation on how Adani’s footprints have grown in India, Maharashtra, and Mumbai since 2014 when Narendra Modi came to power at the centre.
Raj also showed how Adani group got ports, airports, electricity, cement, and other sectors. Referring to the proposed Vadhavan port, he said it was adjacent to Gujarat and claimed that controlling Palghar, Thane, and the Mumbai Region was part of a larger plan to control Mumbai.
“They cannot sell land to Adani if the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) is with us. This is the last election for the Marathi manoos. If he makes a mistake now, the battle for Mumbai will be lost forever,” Raj warned, urging people to vote for the coalition.
The BMC and 28 other municipal corporations in Maharashtra will vote 15 January. Counting of votes will take place the next day. There are 1,700 candidates contesting the election to India’s largest and richest civic body.
Uddhav also told ThePrint that his party is not against development in Dharavi, but asserted that the people there should get houses in Dharavi itself and not thrown out of the area.
The redevelopment is being implemented through a public-private partnership (PPP) between the Adani Group and the Government of Maharashtra.
“Mumbai land should be given to Mumbaikar. But BJP is giving all land to Adani, that is not right,” he alleged.
ThePrint reached out to an Adani Group spokesperson via email and call for comments. This article will be updated as and when a response is received.
In other related issues, Uddhav sought to remind the BJP how it found a footing in the metropolis and the state.
“The BJP was with us for 20 years in the BMC. They were given all posts as well. When we had the mayor, they were given deputy mayor’s post. We had a standing committee chairman; they had other departments. We had the garden department, they had (Mumbai’s civic transport and electricity provider public body) BEST. My father (and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray) gave them everything on a platter,” he said.
“When nobody knew about them (the BJP) in Mumbai and Maharashtra, my father and Shiv Sena UBT fed them, that’s why they are alive in politics. Otherwise, they would have died due to malnutrition…,” he said.
Also Read: Mumbai civic polls: After Thackerays’ campaign, Mahayuti manifesto also banks on Marathi manoos
Marathi manoos card
The issue of Marathi manoos, according to Uddhav, has become important like in the 1950s and 1960s.
Because since the time of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement (which demanded a separate state of Maharashtra in the mid-1950s), he said, Gujarat had eyes on Mumbai. “Today, the BJP wants to take industries to Gujarat. Those Gujaratis living here in Mumbai for decades, we have no issues with them. But never has this happened earlier that a builder has refused a house to someone because of being a Marathi.”
On the accusation that the Thackerays were appealing only to Marathi manoos and not to other non-Marathis in Mumbai, Uddhav said that there was no discrimination during 25 years of his party’s governance. “Hospitals, schools, water supply was for everyone. We did not discriminate against anyone based on Hindu and Muslim in my rule as CM nor in BMC,” he said.
The undivided Shiv Sena under Uddhav broke away from the National Democratic Alliance in 2019. Until then, it was the BJP’s oldest and most consistent ally within the NDA.
Uddhav then went on to serve as the Maharashtra chief minister from November 2019 to June 2022, leading the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government that also comprised the Congress and the undivided NCP.
The BJP, he alleged, was trying to discriminate against the people, be it Hindus and Muslims, Marathis and non-Marathis.
He also accused the BJP of trying to play divide and rule between him and Raj for years, adding that they did not come together for politics. “Experience is the biggest guru. We have seen that in the last 20 years, that BJP is misusing us. They are trying to rule by creating differences between us. Now when they want to finish Mumbai, we will not keep quiet,” Uddhav added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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