He attacked former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has alleged that the company decided to shift the project from Maharashtra to Gujarat when the state had Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, laid the foundation stone of the C-295 aircraft manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat. The facility will manufacture C-295 aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) through collaboration between Tata Advanced Systems Ltd and Airbus Defence and Space S.A., Spain.
The claims by Fadnavis came amid attacks by Uddhav Thackeray-led opposition about the ₹22,000 crore project moving from Maharashtra to Vadodara in Gujarat.
"I had personally invited the chiefs of the Tata Airbus Defence projects on April 24, 2021, at my residence 'Sagar', despite being a leader of opposition in the state. I spoke to them and told them as a senior leader I will speak with the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to keep the project in Maharashtra. However, they told me 'yahan ka mahol investment jaise nahi hai, Devendraji' (the atmosphere in the state is not worth an investment)," he told reporters.
The Deputy Chief Minister also informed that during his tenure as Maharashtra Chief Minister from 2014-2019, he was following up with the company and was pushing them to bring such projects to Maharashtra since 2016.
"After the new government (Uddhav-led Maha Vikas Aghadi) was formed, I noticed some decisions taken earlier were being changed," he alleged.
He claimed that he offered TATA-Airbus consortium extra facilities to ensure the project remains in Maharashtra, but the Uddhav Thackeray government did nothing to retain the project.
"I had even passed a message in 2021 to then (state nodal investment promotion agency) MIDC CEO to pass it on to state industries minister and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray. However, no action was taken. Not a single letter was sent to keep the project here. "The MoU signing and the decision to shift the project to Gujarat was taken during Thackeray's tenure as chief minister of Maharashtra," Fadnavis said.
Fadnavis even suspected that, as the project was planned in Nagpur (constituency of Devendra Fadnavis), the government intentionally didn't act on time.
“Some kind of fake narrative is being pushed in society by the opposition which wasted its two-and-half-year tenure only in criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said.
He also answered the recent questions by opposition on projects by Safran company and said, "French (aviation) firm Safran opened its (aircraft MRO) facility in Hyderabad in Telangana in 2021. But the opposition is blaming us (Shinde-BJP dispensation) for losing that project," he added.
With inputs from PTI.
