“MVA govt planned to arrest Fadnavis, when I objected, I was incorporated as well”: Eknath Shinde

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 18 (ANI): In a move to break the Bharatiya Janata Party and put it on the backfoot, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government had planned to arrest Devendra Fadnavis and when I objected, they planned to arrest me as well, said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, on the allegations of IPS officer Paramveer Singh that MVA government under CM Thackeray and then Home Minister Anil Deshmukh wanted to arrest Devendra Fadnavis and Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra CM said, “This is what I feel sad about. They had planned everything. I had objected when they said they would arrest Devendra Fadnavis which could have put the BJP on the backfoot and potentially their MLAs could have joined Maha Vikas Aghadi. Citing it as wrongdoing, when I objected, they said there is nothing wrong in it, this is all right. They had troubled us, so, we have to do all this and we will do it. It was a case of urban land selling. They planned to incorporate me as well in that case. I had some suspicions as I heard about it from some officers but when I became the Chief Minister, I got to know about their full planning.”

CM Shinde further said that Anil Deshmukh, then Home Minister of Maharashtra had denied Z plus security to him, even after receiving life threats from Naxalites of Gadchiroli.

“When I was minister for Urban Development, I had passed resolutions for developing Gadchiroli, for which Naxalites have threatened me to kill. All the intelligence, security, police forces recommended Z plus security for me, but then the Home Minister denied it. Although some officials said that we would give you Z plus security, but it won’t be on papers, for which I replied, I am not afraid of anyone and I don’t need them,” said Shinde.

Shinde, who was Minister for Urban Development, Public Works and State Border Defence during the tenure of CM Uddhav Thackeray, stated members from CM’s family were also interfering in his office work for which he complained but instead of acting upon it, Thackeray started behaving strangely.

Speaking on the interference by Thackeray’s family members in his ministry during the Maha Vikas Aghadi regime, Shinde said, “He (Uddhav Thackeray) was Chief Minister, he had the right to interfere, so his interference didn’t bother but then his family members started interfering in it which wasn’t fair. Even, I told him that he should tell me about work, but I don’t know what happened to him and after some days he started behaving strangely, I was saddened by it. I don’t know what was in his mind.”

Reacting to the statements of Uddhav Thackeray being his competitor, Shinde said that the government doesn’t run either from home or social media, rather, it works by communicating face-to-face with people.

“The thing is, I have worked with them and I know everything. I am the one who works. When there was COVID, we used to work and go to hospitals with PPE kits. You should also find out about the work of the Chief Minister during two and a half years of tenure. The government and state do not run from home. It does not run on Facebook Live. There is a need to have face-to-face communication. There is a need to listen to the people. Government has to go among the people. If there is a farmer’s loss, we have to visit farms and meet them. If there is a disaster, they (the government) have to reach there. This is the work of the government,” said Shinde.

Stating that MVA has been saying that BJP-led Mahayuti government would collapse but we are still strong, he said, “And that’s why I focus on my work. Since the time our government came, they have been abusing us. The government will fall, it will fall today, it will fall in two months, it will fall in six months. It’s been two years, the government is working hard. The projects they had stopped, we built it in just two years, including development projects Samruddhi Mahamarg, Atal Setu (which reduced the travel time to just fifteen minutes). We are also working on the coastal road to reduce traffic. They had stopped metro work but we started. Many such works that were stopped, we started them,” he added.

Discussing the results of the Lok Sabha elections, Shinde asserted that core voters of the Shiv Sena have shifted from the UBT section and whatever votes they(Shiv Sena-UBT) received were from minorities, which was of Congress and is temporary.

Speaking on the outcome of the Mahayuti alliance during Lok Sabha Polls, Shinde said, “If we look at the votes on percentage-wise, our percentage is high. There is only 0.2 to 0.3 difference between Mahayuti and Maha Vikas Aghadi. Our strike rate was higher than ShivSena UBT. We had a straight competition on 13 seats, from which we won 7 seats and UBT won 6 seats. They lost various seats which they considered bastions, whether Kokan, Sambhaji Nagar, Balekilla or Thana. The vote-base they had on the ideology of Balasaheb Thackeray Ji has shifted. The vote they had got was Congress’ which is temporary. As each Lok Sabha has 6 legislative constituencies, each constituency has 40-50 thousand minority voters, so, they have voted them, which is temporary.”

The INDIA bloc parties won 30 (Congress 13, Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray 9, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) 8) of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. Ajit Pawar’s NCP won one of four seats it contested, Shiv Sena won seven and BJP won nine seats.