Shiv Sena legislator Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday launched a scathing attack on foreign trips being undertaken by various ministers of the Maharashtra government.
Uddhav Thackeray's son Aaditya said Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was planning to go to UK and Germany but there was no agenda prepared for this tour. “This trip got cancelled after my tweet questioning the purpose behind this tour. Now they are claiming that it has been postponed due to drought and excessive rain in parts of the state,” said Aaditya.
He also said that speaker of the state assembly canceled his trip to Ghana following another tweet by him. “Speaker was to travel to Ghana to speak on parliamentary democracy. He is supposed to decide various disqualification petitions that he is hearing. The Supreme Court has already said that hearings should happen in a time-bound manner. So what was he going to speak in Ghana when he is delaying the hearings here. After we raised this issue the trip got cancelled,” he stated.
Then Aaditya spoke about industry minister's upcoming trip to Switzerland, Germany and the UK. “What is the agenda for this tour? The World Economic Forum happened in Davos in January. If you go now, Davos is back to being a small town. So why are you going there and wasting people’s money?” asked Aaditya.
Targeting Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his recent Japan trip where he received an honorary doctorate, Aaditya asked, “Was the expenditure for Japan trip borne by the Japanese government? No, it is to be paid by MIDC as a post facto approval. I have no problem if anyone wants to travel abroad but please travel on your own money."
Aaditya also questioned CM Shinde’s Davos trip last January. “Unconstitutional CM was there for 28 hours and the government spent more than Rs 40 crore. When we carried out our Davos trip during MVA government, each and every detail was planned minutely and everything was announced on Twitter. Why can’t we see the same about these foreign trips?” he asked.
