Nirupam slams Fadnavis over Patna remarks; demands apology

Hitting out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over comparing metropolis Mumbai with Patna, city Congress President Sanjay Nirupam today said that BJP had an inherent hatred for people from Uttar Pradesh as well as Bihar and targets them to conceal its alleged failures.
Talking to reporters, Nirupam alleged that BJP is yet come out of its Bihar Assembly poll defeat.
"Shiv Sena and BJP are trying to hide the failures of governance in Mumbai municipal corporation for the last two decades. When BJP doesn't have answers, they end up insulting Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Earlier too, Fadnavis had questioned Bihar's DNA. He has "baati chokha" with North Indians only for the sake of votes," Nirupam said.

He said that the two saffron parties were responsible for the ills troubling the city.
"To divert attention of the people, to cover up for their inefficiency and failures and to garner major media space ahead of the elections, these two parties are fighting against each other," he alleged.
The corrupt functioning of the civic body cannot be possible without BJP's support to Sena, he said alleging separate contests were "match fixing".

BJP President Amit Shah said the Sena-BJP are in a friendly fight for civic polls while Minister Chandrakant Patil has said both parties will come to together after the results, Nirupam recalled.

"BJP looks down upon people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and targets them when things are not going its way. They have deep-rooted hatred for people from these two states. Fadnavis should withdraw his statement regarding Patna and apologise," Nirupam demanded adding that CM's comments have hurt people from the region.
"We are exploring legal options to take on the Chief Minister for his comments. Asking for votes is violation of a supreme court order against use of caste, region religion for seeking votes," he said.
Nirupam lashed out at Shiv Sena saying it lacked guts to pull down the BJP government in the state.

"BJP calls Sena a party of extortionists and Sena calls BJP a party of goons. Unfortunately, both parties are ruling the state and the Centre," he said.
Yesterday, addressing a rally in Mumbai, Fadnavis accused Uddhav Thackeray's party of "destroying" the metropolis, and claimed that in terms of development, Mumbai now stood in the same league with Patna ("Mumbai ka vikas dekho kitna hua..Patna ke sath lake khada kar diya.