‘This election has no effect on our alliance…the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray is with Shinde’: Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis

In an exclusive pre-poll interaction with the Times group on Friday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke on a range of subjects. Excerpts:



Q: The Thackeray cousins questioned your right to speak about Mumbai saying you were not born here.

A: Who understands Mumbai? One of the great names that comes up is the late Balasaheb Thackeray, but he was not born in Mumbai. His father Prabhodankar Thackeray too was not born in Mumbai. The understanding of Mumbai which Balasaheb Thackeray had, no one has. Those born in Mumbai administered the BMC for several years, what did they do? Mumbai may not be my janmabhoomi but it’s been my karmabhoomi since 1999.



Q: BJP is strong in Mumbai, so why the need for an alliance?

A: Though we are strong, taking the Shiv Sena along is our moral responsibility because today when we see the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray, it is clearly with (Eknath) Shinde. In such circumstances it is not proper to fight against each other. Secondly, they have created a vote bank, we also have a big vote bank. It is a win-win situation for both. So when we sit for seat sharing talks, it’s a give-and-take. We compromised in KalyanDombivli; in Jalgaon we had won 57 seats earlier, but we settled for 47 seats.




Q: How about honouring the legacy by giving them (Shiv Sena) the mayor's post for 2.5 years?

A: Why 2.5 years? We can give it to them for any number of years. We can give them the mayor's post for five years also. The mayor will be of the Mahayuti.



Q: Will your alliance with Shiv Sena and NCP continue till the end of the assembly term?

A: Yes absolutely. This election has no effect on our alliance. We sat together and decided that in several municipal corporations we will contest separately because the entire political space is with us. Why should we concede political space to somebody else? That's our understanding. We are together till 2029 and hopefully thereafter also.



Q: Your relations with NCP, are there times when you regret it?

A: We carefully thought it over before forming an alliance with the NCP. In one city when we come face to face, I have decided not to speak against our alliance partners. He does speak but Ajit Pawar is a practical person. He knows where to go forward, where to step back, stay flexible… we live in political realism. In 2019 all came together and distanced us....we were the single largest party and they still made us sit in the opposition. If we simply sit with our principles then in our lifetime we will never come to power to implement our principles. Therefore, we made some compromises.



Q: Women party workers have got upset over seat distribution and this is reflected on social media.

A: After every election a new generation (of political workers) is created. This happened in 2017 and then in 2022 but there were no elections in between. So now there are two generations of party workers and the number of seats is constant. For every seat there are four contenders and whosoever is given a seat, others feel betrayed. Earlier it would not come out in the media. But that is not a bad thing. Women have become assertive. There is 50% reservation for women, but 55% seats have been given to women.



Q: What about the Ambernath tie-up with Congress?

A: It was 100% wrong. Sometimes what happens is local leaders have their enemies and artificially you cannot bring them together. In Ambernath, our party president who was elected, Sena candidates fought against his family members and the enmity is very strong. I had made it clear: wherever required, go with Shinde Sena or NCP, but here they decided not to go with Sena. Some of those elected on Congress tickets are BJP rebels and came back (to BJP). Congress pre-empted them by removing them from the party. Even the alliance with AIMIM was wrong. In Akot, our nagar president was elected. We needed 2-3 people for a majority. We did an alliance with the NCP which had an alliance with the AIMIM. Technically they (AIMIM) became our alliance partners. The people at the lower level do not realise the repercussions. As soon as I learnt of it, I told them to break it and we even served suspension notices.



Q: Unopposed victories in local body polls this time are being attributed to muscle and money power.

A: If muscle and money power were being used, it would have happened in Mumbai also. Maximum unopposed elections happened in Kalyan-Dombivli because…Congress has been wiped out there, so also NCP. Even an Islamic party independent candidate got elected unopposed there. We are such big parties and we had no candidate against him.



Q: What is your roadmap for Mumbai?

A: The DCPR-2034 takes care of every aspect. All DP roads will be concretised. We have a new design for footpaths. Mumbai is landlocked and there is no option but to go vertical but there is a limit to it. All global cities have used this strategy. For BMC a platform for clearing building proposals using artificial intelligence is on the way. Unlike Auto DCR where 4-5 human interventions are required and there is human subjectivity, on this platform it won’t happen. The proposal will be scrutinised by AI, flag provisions that are not as per DCPR, and even provide a 3D model of the project. Using technology we shall try to make it transparent.



Q: Despite Govt’s focus on big infrastructure projects, there’s aperception that quality of life has not improved much in Mumbai in terms of air quality, pedestrian space, and traffic. Would it have been better to focus on smaller, intelligent solutions in different neighbourhoods?

A: Ease of living comes from ease of commuting, which means you need clean means of transportation and so we have planned over 400 kms of metro. Improved suburban railway services, improved frequency of trains, passenger amenities are being provided with 50% funding by the state. For second class passengers, the train fare will remain the same. We have also introduced electric buses, new roads which will decongest Western Express Highway. The Worli-Sewri connector will be ready by Dec 2026. To clean up sewage flowing into the sea, treatment plants have got approvals.

Q: In doing redevelopment in Dharavi, why resettle residents on a dumping yard (in Deonar) which has a toxic environment and will take decades to clear even after scientific closure. Previously, slum rehab schemes in Mahul have had to be abandoned because of such pollution.

A: Whatever happened in Mahul was a scam. All those who are eligible will be rehabilitated in Dharavi. Those ineligible, if we simply remove them, then that is no solution because they will settle elsewhere. So we decided to provide them 12 years of rental housing in different places, thus abiding by the court order. One of the places is the dumpyard…in Nagpur there is a Symbiosis and next to it is the NM campus. Both have come up on Nagpur's dumping yard. We did bio-mining, capping and reclaimed the land. There is no smell, no gases.



Q: What about slums on Central govt land?

A: We are in talks with the Centre for redevelopment of slums on central govt. For airport land we have almost convinced the Centre that if slums are redeveloped in-situ then we shall free up 50-100 acres. Our efforts are on for railways as well. They will never be able to remove all the slums on railway land. But as long as railways has enough and a little more for its projects, it should do.



Q: We elect political representatives to a local body, but we can never pick a bureaucracy. Can you reform the bureaucracy at the lower levels in BMC?

A: It is a challenge. They know we (politicians) are around only for 5 years…we are working on inter-corporation staff transfers – from Thane to Pune, etc – but there is no other corporation in the state of the size and scale of the BMC.