Chhatrapati Sambhajingar: “Vote Jihad” should be countered by “Dharma-Buddha” of the vote, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said here on Saturday as he campaigned for the November 20 assembly elections.
The BJP leader was speaking at a rally in support of Mahayuti coalition candidates Atul Save (Aurangabad East), Sanjay Shirsat (Aurangabad West) and Pradip Jaiswal (Aurangabad Central).
“No one can change the name of this city now. At an AIMIM rally here, someone asked who was Sambhaji Maharaj. Sambhaji Maharaj remained undefeated for nine years. So we have given his name to the city,” he said.
The city, earlier known as Aurangabad, was renamed for Sambhaji, the second ruler of the Maratha state after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
“A vote Jihad has begun in the state now. We saw that in the Lok Sabha elections. In Dhule, we were ahead by 1.90 lakh votes but the Malegaon (assembly segment) had 1.94 lakh votes and we were defeated by only 4,000 votes. This vote Jihad was the reason for our defeat there because we were not together,” said the BJP leader.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has given the message ‘batenge to katenge’ (divided we perish) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said ‘ek rahenge to safe rahenge’ (united we remain safe), Fadnavis said.
The election is an opportunity to show that Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was a saffron fortress, he added.
Without naming Shiv Sena (UBT) chief and former BJP ally Uddhav Thackeray, Fadnavis said late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray gave the name `Sambhajinagar’ to this city, “and now some people are ashamed to call Bal Thackeray Hindu-hridaya-samrat (ruler of Hindu hearts) and they call him ‘Janab’ Bal Thackeray.
This is an election for crushing the dreams of those who are trying to bring the rule of Razakars to the city, he said in a swipe at the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
Razakars were the infamous militia of the Nizam, the erstwhile ruler of the Hyderabad state of which Aurangabad was a part.
“If they are doing vote Jihad, Sambhajinagar should be ready to do ‘Dharma-Buddha’ (religious war) of votes,” Fadnavis, who also holds the home portfolio, said.
The Mahayuti government sanctioned a Rs 1600 crore water pipeline scheme “in just eight days” , Fadnavis said, adding that as the local administration had no funds to pay its part of Rs 600 crore for the project, the state government paid it.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi government stopped it but the Mahayuti resumed it and the city will have enough water in every home in the next three months, Fadnavis said.
“Garbage, sewer line, road issues were resolved by funding the development work here. We also built (Nagpur-Mumbai) Samruddhi highway which helped us bring investments of Rs 73,000 crore to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar,” he said, promising investment of another Rs 1 lakh crore in the city.
The state-sanctioned Rs 740 crore for the expansion of the local airport, he noted.
A sports university and cricket stadium were being built here, the BJP leader added.
