Vedanta-Foxconn plant going to Gujarat is `attack on Maharashtra’s prestige’: Shiv Sena

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The Shiv Sena on Thursday said the mega semiconductor project of Vedanta-Foxconn going to Gujarat was an attack on Maharashtra’s “prestige”.

This was just the beginning and one day the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government might even “trade Mumbai,” said the editorial in the Sena mouthpiece “Saamana”.

Before this, an international finance centre (which eventually took shape as Gujarat International Finance Tech- GIFT City) was shifted to Gujarat from Mumbai, the editorial alleged. A blame-game has begun in Maharashtra following the announcement two days ago that the joint venture semiconductor project of the Indian conglomerate Vedanta and Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, proposed to be set up near Pune earlier, will come up in Gujarat.

Without naming the BJP, the Sena mouthpiece alleged that like this project, some people also harbour the desire to “conquer” Mumbai-Thane and undermine Maharashtra’s prosperity.

This was the reason a puppet chief minister was installed in Maharashtra, Saamana alleged.

When BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was chief minister from 2014-19, the GIFT City project was handed over to Gujarat, and current CM Eknath Shinde similarly allowed the semiconductor plant to slip away, it claimed. Tomorrow they will not hesitate to even trade Mumbai. Foxconn is a start, the editorial said. This is a serious attack on Maharashtra’s prestige, it further said. On Wednesday, Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray had said that Maharashtra had also lost a proposed bulk drug park project in Raigad district as the Centre approved similar parks in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh instead.