Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Thursday said the VedantaFoxconn semiconductor plant should not have gone out of Maharashtra, but there was no hope now of the big-ticket project coming back to the state after the joint venture company opted for Gujara.
The Opposition parties have sought to corner the Eknath Shinde-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government following the announcement two days ago that the Rs 1.54 lakh crore semiconductor plant would be set up in neighbouring Gujarat and not in Maharashtra as proposed earlier.
Addressing a press conference, Pawar said the Centre’s assurance to Maharashtra that it will get a bigger project than the Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant was is akin to trying to ”convince a child”.
He said the mega project was originally envisaged to come up at Talegaon near Pune city, which already has an automobile hub near Chakan.
It would have been good for the company (Vedanta-Foxconn) had the plant come up at Talegaon, said the former Union minister. Two days ago, India’s mining conglomerate Vedanta and Taiwanese electronic giant Foxconn jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gujarat government to set up a Rs 1.54 lakh crore semiconductor and display manufacturing unit in the adjoining state.
Leaders of the erstwhile ruling coalition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), consisting of the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress, have slammed the Shinde-led government for Maharashtra losing out on the mega project.
