Mumbai, Sep 20 (IANS): The Maharashtra Congress has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of performing the ground-breaking ceremony for the PM MITRA Park in Amravati for the second time in 14 months to mislead the people of the state ahead of the Assembly elections.

State Congress President Nana F. Patole said that the then Union Minister Piyush Goyal, along with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and others, had carried out the ‘bhoomi-puja’ of the same Prime Minister Mega Integrated Textile Regions and Apparels Park on a 1000-acre plot on July 16, 2023.

“Thereafter, not a single brick was laid for the PM MITRA Park till date. Now, by conducting a repeat ground-breaking ceremony for the same project again in 14 months, the BJP is misleading the people of the state, and it is the PM’s manner of showing that something big is given here before the elections,” slammed Patole.

The Congress chief also predicted that after the Assembly elections are over, even this project would be shifted to Gujarat like many others in the past have taken flight from here.

According to the official reports of the previous function, the PM MITRA Park’s ‘bhoomi-puja’ was performed with huge fanfare in Amravati last year, but nothing moved ahead after that, he added sharply.

Targeting the BJP and the PM, Patole said that Modi is even spreading lies from the sacred land of Mahatma Gandhi (Wardha), by conveying a false impression that big projects are also being set up in Maharashtra.

However, the reality is that the ‘Gujarat Lobby’ in New Delhi is weakening the foundations of Maharashtra, as major projects and industries are being diverted to the PM’s home state, depriving the people here of jobs and progress.

Alleging that the BJP is playing havoc with Maharashtra’s economy, he referred to the Vedanta Foxconn’s massive semiconductor project shifting to Gujarat, but after a massive political furore here, the BJP had promised ‘even bigger industries’ for this state, and demanded, “what is the status of that now”.