Metro project of residents, not of any govt: Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis

PUNE: Former chief minister and leader of opposition in the state assembly Devendra Fadnavis inspected the Metro work at the Civil Court multimodal station on Saturday, a week after deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar flagged off the Metro’s trial run on the Vanaz route.
The BJP leaders, after the function, objected to Fadnavis and BJP’s state unit president and Kothrud MLA Chandrakant Patil not getting the invitation to attend the event last week.
Fadnavis said that the question of taking credit did not arise. “Ajit Pawar is the present deputy chief minister and guardian minister. Hence, the trial run was flagged off by him. But, when the project will be ready, we feel it should be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and we hope they will not raise any objection to it,” he said.
Fadnavis said, “We do not feel that the Metro project belongs to any single political party or any government. It is the project of Pune residents for the citizens. Hence, we are ready to provide whatever support is required for it.”
He said that he was able to give a push to the project when it was stuck. “When I took responsibility as chief minister the project was stuck. There were issues of alignment and space. We held many meetings, discussions and were able to give a push to the project,” he said.
While expressing satisfaction over the Metro’s work, Fadnavis said that the project had progressed at a considerable pace, so far and that he was told by the MahaMetro authorities that one section would be functional by October.