Senior Congress leader and former CM Prithviraj Chavan at a press conference in Pimpri on Sunday. (Express photo by Rajesh Stephen)Minutes after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held a press conference in the city highlighting the “industrial progress” made by Maharashtra during his five-year tenure, senior Congress leader and former CM Prithviraj Chavan said the CM was “lying and trying to mislead the people of state”. He alleged that the government was refusing to probe into corruption allegations against the CM made by the Congress.
“The CM claimed that maximum investments and job creation have taken place in Maharashtra during his tenure. This is nothing but a big lie… When I seek figures from them, they refuse to place the actual facts… because they don’t have anything to show,” he said at a press conference in Pimpri.
Chavan said he met state’s finance minister and industry minister, but “both have failed to provide the actual figures of investments and jobs”. “The BJP government is busy making political recruitments and it has nothing to do with the job creation,” he added.
Chavan said in the last five years, the industrial growth rate in the state has slipped, in the index of ease of doing business, Maharashtra has gone down from 8th to 13th position, new industrial units are not coming up, the existing ones are hit by recession and very few jobs have been created. “Instead of providing vague figures, the government should come up with a white paper,” he demanded.
Chavan said his party had made allegations of corruption against the chief minister, but the government is refusing to investigate them. “Whether it was Prakash Mehta case, CIDCO case, Pune’s DP scam and Samruddhi land scam , we have made allegations of corruption and demanded probe into CM’s role. But his government is refusing to investigate except for filing one FIR,” he said.
Stating that the country was facing the worst industrial slowdown, Chavan said, “The government was cut off from the ground reality. Therefore, after presenting one budget, it had to present another budget,” he said.
Meanwhile, defending former Union minister P Chidambaram, Chavan said, “The case pertained to when Chidambaram was the Finance Minister. Nothing happened for nine years and they dig it up in 2017. He had given his approval only when the file was approved by officials. He is being targeted by the central government, which is displaying dictatorial attitude.”
On the upcoming Assembly elections, Chavan said the NCP and the Congress have decided to contest 125 seats each. “We will leave 38 seats for our friendly parties,” he said, adding that both the parties were confident of returning to power.
Chavan said he will not contest from Satara Lok Sabha seat against Udayanraje Bhosale, who is set to contest from BJP. “I will contest from my traditional seat of South Karad,” he said.
