BJP, Cong. trade barbs as Fadnavis calls MVA ‘imposter government’

Former CM says traders and businessmen were forced to participate in bandh

The tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) dispensation of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress traded barbs with the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the shutdown called over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence with former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis dubbing the MVA as an “imposter government”.

He alleged that traders and businessmen, despite their opposition, had been ‘threatened’ by the State government to participate in the bandh.

“Do the parties which comprise the MVA coalition even have the moral right to hold the protest? These are the same people [Congress and the NCP] who had ordered the police to fire on protesting farmers in Pune’s Maval in 2011 [when the Congress-NCP government were in power]…while the Lakhimpur incident is very serious and the [BJP] government in Uttar Pradesh is probing the case, today’s shutdown by the MVA is purely a political stunt,” alleged Mr. Fadnavis, while pointing to the recent police lathicharge on farmers at Hanumangarh in Rajasthan, which has a Congress government.