Rahul links fall of MVA govt to Dharavi’s redevelopment

CHANDRAPUR: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has stepped up his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging that industrialist Gautam Adani played a part in the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra in 2022. Gandhi said the decision to bring down the government was taken at a meeting attended not only by Adani but also by Union home minister Amit Shah, to ensure that the BJP in Maharashtra would hand over Dharavi land to Adani. To this end, MLAs had been bought for crores of rupees, he alleged.

The Congress leader made the allegation two days after NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar admitted that he had attended a meeting hosted by Adani in Delhi, in which the possibility of forming a BJP-NCP government had been discussed after the assembly election results in 2019.

Gandhi’s charge about handing over Dharavi to Adani refers to the massive Dharavi redevelopment project, a joint venture with the BJP-led Mahayuti government in the state. Adani Reality won the bid to redevelop the slum cluster, one of Asia’s largest slums, spread across 240 hectares of prime land in the heart of the city, in November 2022.

The Congress leader was speaking on Saturday while touring Vidarbha, where he held two rallies — in Amravati and Chandrapur. At the first rally, Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of “killing the constitution in a closed room”. He said, “I want to tell the people of Maharashtra how their elected government was snatched in the meeting, where Adani and Shah were present. They planned to steal your government along with Amit Shah. It was organised to steal the government by purchasing MLAs against handing over crores of cash,” he alleged.

He then asked the gathering if the BJP was following the constitution, by buying the MLAs and planning to bring down an elected government. “Where does the constitution allow stealing a government by doling out crores to MLAs? Though everyone is aware who did it, the reason was Dharavi land, which is worth ₹1 lakh crore,” Gandhi alleged, while addressing the crowd.

Gandhi stressed that, if the Congress was voted to power, he would not allow the project to proceed.

“They are prepared to give Dharavi land worth ₹1 lakh crore, and they thought it would happen easily, but it will not. Rahul Gandhi is standing in front of them,” he challenged.