Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: One engine running to Gujarat, another is deadweight: Chidambaram slams BJP

Mumbai: Slamming BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s narrative of double-engine governments, former union minister and senior Congressman P Chidambaram on Saturday said that while one engine is running towards Gujarat another is a simple deadweight.

Chidambaram, a former minister who had handled portfolios like Finance and Home, said that in the last 10 years, the economy is in a mess and the agrarian distress is concerning.

On mega-projects being moved from Maharashtra to Gujarat, he said: "The major industries that had signed contracts on setting up their plants in Maharashtra have now moved to Gujarat, which has led to an increase in unemployment…Tata-Airbus transport aircraft and Vedanta Foxconn have moved to Gujarat.”

“As Maharashtra's projects went to other states, investment and employment also went away. Suicides have increased as farmers are in crisis. The per capita income of Maharashtra has declined and the states of Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Haryana have moved ahead. The BJP-coalition government in Maharashtra is acting on the advice of Gujarat,” the senior Congress leader said.

“Suicides have increased as farmers are in crisis. In 2023, as many as 2,851 suicides were reported and recorded,” he said pointing out the agrarian distress.

Chidambaram detailed the decline of Maharashtra under BJP rule with statistics, adding that Maharashtra's per capita income has fallen from 9.6 to 7.6 per cent, agriculture has fallen from 4.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent, service sector has fallen from 13 per cent to 8 per cent.