Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavisat India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019 reiterated his confidence than the BJP and Shiv Sena will forge an alliance in the upcoming Assembly election and they will return to the power. He claimed that none of the Congress and NCP leaders who have joined the BJP have any inquiry pending against them. Fadnavis also alleged that some environment activists are trying to give benefit of Rs 5,000 crore to a private land holder through their agitation against the metro car shed in Aarey Milk Colony. He said in last five years he worked for water conservation. In next five years, his focus will be water distribution and making the drought a past.
TAKEAWAYS OF THE SESSION:
# I have worked with positivity in last five years. I did not play chess where one needs to make moves and counter moves. I faced all the problems and challenges those were thrown at me with positivity.
# We will have an alliance with the Shiv Sena for sure. The talks on seat sharing are going on. We don’t dictate terms to Shiv Sena. We are friends. We do take decisions unitedly. There are several aspirants in both the parties and both of them will definitely try to please them till the last moment.
# I won’t say the corruption has 100 per cent stopped. The Opposition leveled several allegations against out government without evidence. Still, we conducted an inquiry.
# Mumbai’s infrastructure is improving. In monsoon, the water gets logged if there is heavy rain at the time of high tide. We need 8 pumping stations to drain out the water at the time of raining. At present, we have completed five. The earlier government used to delay the environment clearances for these projects.
#The area of Aarey where the metro car shed to planned does not have any bio-diversity and forest. The High Court, National Green Tribunal and the Supreme Court as well have ruled that it is a non-forest land.
# We have planted 23,000 trees in Aarey and have planned to plant 1200 more. The metro will mitigate 2.50 lakh tonnes of carbon once it is operational. Otherwise we need 2 crore fully grown trees to mitigate that much carbon.
# We have planned water grid for the drought affected areas. The work will be completed in four years. We will lift 167 TMC water from Konkan and will release it in Godavari basin through tunnel. Similarly, we will divert 100 TMC water to Vidarbha which otherwise flows to Telangana.
QUOTES:
“I respect the environment activists. But some of them are trying to give benefit of Rs 5,000crore to a private land holder by demanding sifting of metro car shed from Aarey Milk Colony. There were 13,000 objections to the metro car shed in Aarey. Out of them, 10,000 were registered from a Bengaluru-based website.”
“When the friends pelted stones at us we accepted them assuming that they were flowers.”
“I won’t be another SharadPawar. The era of his politics is over. People don’t like his style of politics.”
“The allegation that I transferred police department’s accounts to Axis Bank because my wife works there is baseless. I got married to Amruta in November 2005. The accounts of police department were transferred to Axis Bank in March 2005. I did not know that time I will become Chief Minister someday.”
“I welcome Aaditya Thackeray’s activeness in politics. His father or grandfather stayed away from electoral politics. It does not mean he also should follow them. He is understanding the situation. Afterall, he has to take the reins of Shiv Senasome day.”
“RSS does not work to make someone Chief Minister or Prime Minister. It works towards making India strong.”
“There is no vacancy for the PM’s post at present and in future also. If the party asks me to move to Delhi as minister or in the party organization or go to Nagpur I will abide by the decision as a disciplined worker.”
“I can only remember songs not sing. I tell Amruta if she consults me on which song she should sing at a public platform I am confident the song will be a super hit.”