Modi to launch development projects in Thane, Pune

Setting development as agenda for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday will lay the foundation stone for a series of projects in Mumbai and Pune to launch the BJP campaign in Maharashtra.

The prime minister will lay the foundation stone for the two Metro lines of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) at the Vasudev Balwant Phadke Ground, near Subhash Nagar, Kalyan-West in Thane district.

He will also launch a mega housing scheme of the City Industrial and Development Corporation Ltd (CIDCO). These dwellings come under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

In another event in Pune, Modi will lay the foundation stone for Metro Phase–3 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Stadium at Balevadi.

In Kalyan, he will take part in the ground-breaking ceremony of Thane-Bhiwandi-Kalyan Metro-5 and Dahisar-Mira-Bhayandar Metro-9 corridors.

This is Modi’s first visit to Maharashtra after the BJP lost Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The visit also comes at a time when Shiv Sena and BJP are at loggerheads over another issue.

Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has not been extended an invitation for the Kalyan event. The organisers, MMRDA and CIDCO, come under direct supervision of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Peeved with the exclusion, the Sena-controlled Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation did not invite BJP leaders for the inauguration of the coastal road project, which was held on Sunday.

The Kalyan event is significant as Fadnavis, in the last over four years, had given a major push to the infrastructure development of the MMR.