Rejected invite from Sena chief's PA to join party: Wadettiwar

Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar on Friday said he had rejected an invite from Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's personal assistant to join the ruling party.

He further claimed he had not received any call from "Varsha or Matoshree" with offers to join the BJP or the Shiv Sena.

Varsha is the official residence of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis while Matoshree is the Bandra East home of Thackeray.

"I have not got calls from Varsha or Matoshree. I had received 20-24 calls from Uddhav Thackeray's PA Milind Narvekar. I picked up just two calls and I straight away rejected his offer to join the party (Sena)," Wadettiwar said here.

Several MLAs of the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have either joined the ruling BJP-Sena or are reported to be preparing for a switch ahead of the state Assembly polls likely to be held in September-October.

Speaking on Fadnavis' 'Mahajanadesh Yatra' (Mega Mandate March), Wadettiwar said the programme was a "yatra of misdeeds" as the state government had failed to provide relief to farmers and other sections of society across all fronts.

Fadnavis started his phase-wise, two-month long march from Amravati on Thursday.

Unemployment had increased, industries were shutting down rendering lakhs of people jobless, and farmers were still waiting for their loans to be written off, the senior Congress leader alleged.

Prices of fertilisers had increased by 20-30 per cent and farmers were not getting crop insurance, he further claimed.

"The Fadnavis government should say if the yatra is about announcing its deeds or misdeeds," he said.

Speaking on the contentious issue of EVMs, Wadettiwar said opposition parties and NGOs would protest against it on August 9 and call for a return to ballot papers.