Mumbai :
Taking a jibe at the Shiv Sena over its #karun dakhavle (we did it) poll campaign slogan, Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan on Saturday asked Uddhav Thackeray to withdraw support to the BJP-led state government.
“Uddhav should implement what he says and withdraw support to the BJP-led government by asking his ministers to resign. Congress is ready for the mid-term polls,” Chavan said while addressing an election meeting at Antop Hill in Mumbai.
On BJP’s ‘transparency’ plank for the BMC polls, Chavan wondered why the party had not thought of transparency for the 22 years it has been in power in the civic body.
“Congress works to unite people, while BJP wants to polarise society on the mandir-masjid issue. BJP says ‘mandir wahi banayenge’ and Shiv Sena says they will withdraw support to the BJP government, but both the parties don’t give a date for it,” he alleged.
Taking a dig at Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over the tagline “parivartan tar honarach (change will happen)” denoting its resolve to dethrone the Sena in the BMC, Chavan said, “Change will happen not in favour of BJP, but in favour of Congress.”
The Congress leader added that villages in Maharashtra had better roads than in Mumbai.
Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam said if Congress is voted to power, it will start canteen service for the common man, where full meal will be available for Rs 20.
Former MPs Milind Deora and Eknath Gaikwad were present at the meeting.
In another rally at Sion held later, Chavan said his party was responsible for whatever development was seen in Mumbai, like Metro rail, Mono Rail and Eastern Freeway.
“However, Shiv Sena and BJP, despite being in power for 22 years in Mumbai, failed to provide basic amenities like water, roads and health services to the citizens,” he said.
“In all these years, instead of spending the civic resources on development of the city, leaders of these two parties failed to live up to the people’s expectations and are now busy attacking each other,” Chavan said.
Demonetisation hit the common man hard and cost people of their livelihood, he said.
