Maharashtra elections 2024: Campaigning ends with potshots over Dharavi project

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addresses the media at a press conference at BKC on Monday. Pic/Shadab Khan

The Congress and the BJP presented closing arguments referencing the alleged BJP-Adani nexus on Monday when campaigning for the state Assembly election ended. The Congress said the Narendra Modi government was hand-in-glove with the Adani Group, while the BJP claimed the Congress-led UPA and its state governments were responsible for Adani's rise.

On Monday, Congress's star campaigner and Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, held a press conference in Mumbai, to reiterate the charges in the Dharavi redevelopment project. He endorsed Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray's commitment to scrap the Dharavi redevelopment project being implemented in collaboration with the Maharashtra government by a company belonging to the Adani Group.

Vinod Tawde, national general secretary, BJP. Pic/X/@TawdeVinod

Taking a dig at the BJP's ‘Ek hain toh safe hain' slogan, Gandhi displayed posters that carried Gautam Adani and PM Narendra Modi's photo and Dharavi's map. The posters were locked in a safe (steel locker) that was brought to the venue. "I want to make you understand BJP's nara [slogan]. This Modi with Adani is actually ‘Ek hain toh safe hain' [together we are safe]. All is being done for one man. I'm absolutely convinced this is a theft of land. Adani is fully supported by Modi
and he gets what he wants," he alleged, adding that the Dharavi project, and transferring land worth R1 lakh crore to Adani was an attempt to change Mumbai's
nature (character).

He denied that the BJP's slogan would change the course of action. "This is the right slogan. But we should know who is with whom and who would be affected. Whatever is happening is against the people of Dharavi and Maharashtra. This truly is an election issue," Gandhi added, saying that his party supported Thackeray's decision to scrap the Dharavi tenders because it wasn't just about Dharavi but Mumbai where the development on the land being given to Adani would cause flooding and environmental losses.

Rahul Gandhi addresses the media at a press conference at BKC on Monday. Pic/Shadab Khan

"It is time to decide who, among one man and the people, gets the state's riches," he said, alleging further that eight big projects that were supposed to create five lakh jobs were taken to other states. He stated that the caste census was the central pillar of the Congress's poll agenda because it wanted to know who should get what and how much.

Tawde counters

BJP's National General Secretary Vinod Tawde countered Gandhi's allegations, saying that the Adani-Congress relationship was much older. He said it was during the UPA government and Congress-led state governments (before and after 2014) that the Adani Group was granted big projects in India and abroad.

Vinod Tawde, senior BJP leader

"There were eight leaders on Gandhi's dais on Wednesday. Of them, six were from other states. Gandhi carried a safe to the press conference and took out some photos. We may also show such photos of Adani with [Robert] Vadra [Gandhi's brother-in-law] with former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, with [Thiruvananthapuram MP] Shashi Tharoor, with the Telangana CM, and with those who were the Haryana CM before 2014," he added.

"Adani Group expanded during the Congress regime. We have a list of Adani projects before and after 2014 in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Punjab etc. He got a project in Punjab's Bathinda and Mundra port and SEZ. He was awarded the Dighi Port in the MVA regime. Then-Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel gave Adani a mine developer and operator's contract. Gehlot gave him 16,000 hectares of land for a 10,000MW solar project in Rajasthan and also got him to build the Jaipur airport. He said even the West Bengal government had given Adani big projects.

Tawde rephrased his party's slogan, saying, "Ek sai toh safe, Rahul Gandhi fake hain". He asked the Congress to talk about its award of a Rs 12,400 crore agreement with Adani in Telangana, and a Rs 46,000-crore solar project in Rajasthan.

Tawde alleged that Gandhi wanted the Dharavi residents to stay in slums forever, saying, "Is he upset because the shaikh [of Abu Dhabi] didn't get the Dharavi contract? Does he want to say ‘Ek hain toh safe hain, Dharavi ke liye Shaikh hain?'"

The BJP leader dismissed the land transfer allegations. "The land will stay with the government. In fact, the tender was finalised when Thackeray was the CM. The tender conditions were changed after railway land was given for the project." Tawde said Modi's ‘Ek hain...' slogan was to counter the Congress's strategy of dividing OBCs through the caste census.