Sena hits poll road with Expressway

November 30: Anticipating mid-term elections, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray today launched his poll campaign with the much-delayed inaugu...

November 30: Anticipating mid-term elections, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray today launched his poll campaign with the much-delayed inauguration at Kon of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, a major poll promise of the Sena-BJP government in the last Assembly elections.

Thackeray began the campaign with an attack on two of his pet targets: the media and the environment lobby. But today, while he was dismissive of the former, asking his followers not to believe the media, he came down hard on environmentalists and accused them of stalling major developmental projects and singled out Medha Patkar for attack.

He said any number of important projects were stuck because of delays due to litigation from the lobby.

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“Elect the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance with a massive mandate. There is absolutely no substance in the campaign launched by the press. Ignore it when you exercise your franchise,” he urged a massive gathering after laying the foundation stone for the Rs 1,500 crore Expressway.And then he turned his ire to political enemy number one: Sharad Pawar.

Thackeray said Sharad Pawar was responsible for the inordinate delay in the project. He said in 1990, when Pawar was Chief Minister, he (Thackeray) had personally submitted the proposal of a leading industrial house which had agreed to complete the entire work free of cost. Their only condition was that the toll rates would be decided and collected by them till the entire cost was recovered.

“Unfortunately, Pawar did not take much interest in the proposal as he insisted on knowing the name of the industrialist while I sought an assurance from him that the project work would be allotted to the industrialist,” Thackeray said and announced dramatically: “Today, I am disclosing the name. It was Reliance. Now I am requesting Chief Minister Manohar Joshi to allot at least a piece of work to them,” Thackeray added.

Commenting on the political crisis at the Centre, he said “Mid-term polls are the only alternative. I am launching the election campaign of the alliance today itself, there will no separate meeting to break the coconut the traditional way to kick off electioneering,” he announced.

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Thackeray said he was sure that the BJP would be in a position to form the government, or at least reach near the number required for the purpose, if mid-term elections are held. He also made it clear that there was no dispute between the Shiv Sena and BJP over sharing of seats for the Lok Sabha.

“The agreed principle is that both the parties will get the seats they had won in the last elections while there will be negotiations for the 15 out of the 48 seats won by the Congress,” he added.

Public Works Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that those farmers whose land had been acquired for the Expressway would be given a compensation of Rs 4.50 lakh to Rs 7.50 lakh per hectare.