Govt's remote is at Silver Oak, batteries in Delhi: Fadnavis

In a swipe at Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said here on Saturday that the government's "remote control" was with the NCP and its "batteries" were with the Congress.

Speaking at a gathering of BJP workers, the former chief minister attacked the Shiv Sena, the BJP's former ally, for abandoning its ideology and joining hands with the Congress and the NCP to form government.

"Nobody can understand who is running this government. There is a chief minister whose remote control is in someone else's hands...remote is at Silver Oak (NCP chief Sharad Pawar's Mumbai residence) and batteries of the remote are in Delhi (where the Congress' top leadership is based)," Fadnavis said.

"The chief minister is saying something, Silver Oak is saying something else and Delhi is saying something different," the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly said.

The people of Maharashtra had given mandate to the BJP as the single largest party, but "we were tricked and cheated and we could not form government", he said.

The Thackeray-led government has not fulfilled its assurances to farmers and urban infrastructure projects have stalled, the BJP leader alleged.

"This government is not interested in working...it is interested in stalling work," he said.

"The ideology of nationalism which some people had, today seems to have changed. They say they have not changed their colours, but we can see their changed colours," Fadnavis said, in apparent reference to Uddhav Thackeray's statement that he had not changed its "saffron colour".

If the Shiv Sena was still committed to Hindutva, why does it not support the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and "show its strength" when Vinayak Damodkar Savarkar is insulted (by its ally Congress), Fadnavis asked.