Launching a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Union minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday alleged the Tata Advanced Systems and Airbus aircraft manufacturing project was initially meant to be set up in Maharashtra but was shifted to Gujarat at the behest of the Prime Minister.
Addressing an election rally in Baramati, Pawar said that Ratan Tata wanted to set up the project in Maharashtra and a 500-acre plot in Nagpur’s MIDC area was allocated for it when the Manmohan Singh government was at the Centre. “However, after Modi took over as the Prime Minister, he called Tata and told him to set up the factory in Gujarat,” he added.
He regretted that the project would have provided thousands of employment opportunities to the people of Maharashtra, which were lost as a result of this shift. Pawar also accused Modi of prevailing upon Foxconn to establish its semiconductor factory in Gujarat rather than Maharashtra, leading to the loss of more jobs.
The veteran politician said that as Prime Minister, Modi is supposed to work in the interest of the country as a whole and not for a particular state alone. So far, neither the government nor the BJP has reacted to Pawar’s allegations.
In what would be a major fillip for the government’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ program, the inauguration of the Tata Advanced Systems and Airbus facility in Vadodara on Monday marked the first instance of a private sector-led aircraft manufacturing project in India.
The facility inaugurated by Modi and visiting Spanish President Pedro Sanchez would manufacture and assemble 40 Airbus C295 aircraft in pursuance of a contract with the Indian Air Force.
