JOIN USMaharashtra govt misusing power to ensure shutdown: Devendra Fadnavis
Lashing out at the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government for the Maharashtra bandh, leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis said the government is misusing police and administrative machinery to ensure the shutdown.
“The government is of complete double standards…they just want to grab media attention,” Fadnavis told reporters in Mumbai.
According to him, if there is any true saviour of farmers, it is prime minister Narendra Modi.
“The incident has happened in Uttar Pradesh…the government there is doing the needful,” he said, pointing out that because of back-to-back floods in Maharashtra the farmers are dying by suicides. “The farmers have not got a single ‘naya paisa’ help or very little help,” he said.
“They equate the Lakhimpur Kheri incident with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre but what about the Maval firing incident (of Pune district) in which farmers were killed,” he said targeting NCP supremo Sharad Pawar. “When farmers are lathi charged in Rajasthan, they remain silent but for farmers' death in Uttar Pradesh they will shut down the entire Maharashtra,” he said.
“This is like state-sponsored bandh imposed and implemented with the help of police and administration. The traders and businessmen and their unions are being threatened to participate in it. The ruling parties are misusing police and sales Tax/GST administrations to impose bandh," he said.
On the bandh and legal issues, he said: “The stone-pelting on BEST buses and then the stopping of BEST buses is all planned. It appears to be planned by the BMC and Maharashtra government. I request the Bombay High Court to take cognisance of this as the Supreme Court has prohibited such kind of bandhs. The Maharashtra government should compensate for the vandalism on BEST buses. This is the first time a cabinet which is responsible for the functioning of the state has called for a state bandh,” he said.
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