‘Unconstitutional’ Shinde-Fadnavis government lost two mega projects: Aaditya Thackeray

Shiv Sena leader and Worli legislator Aaditya Thackeray termed the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government as unconstitutional and incompetent, and blamed it for the State losing the $20 billion Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor unit to Gujarat. Role of Maha Vikas Adhadi Responding to the Shinde-Fadnavis government’s allegations that the previous Maha Vikas Adhadi government didn’t pursue the project meticulously and opposed other mega projects that could have benefited the State, the young Thackeray, said “if we didn’t do so, how did Vedanta issue the Letter of Interest and how did it come to a stage of HPC? They need to move from the allegation mindset to answer the people.” When asked why the previous MVA government led by his father and then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray couldn't finalise the deal during the two-and-half-years term, he pointed out that the talks formally began only in January after the Centre’s subsidy proposal in December 2021 for semiconductor chip production. Reacting sharply to the Vedanta Resources Limited chairman Anil Agawaral’s tweets about investing in new projects in Maharashtra, the former minister said “it’s unfortunate that they were made to tweet to justify the failure of the Maharashtra Chief Minister.” Besides, Mr. Thackeray raised several pertinent questions with regard to the details of the project — will it be bigger than the semiconductor unit, how many jobs will create and when will it start?