Thread by @gauravsabnis

Translating to amplify.

"I'm proud of my dad for getting arrested protesting the refinery. Not everyone who is arrested is a criminal. Many are defenders of their motherland.
Only one demand - cancel refinery.
Cancel the refinery, save Konkan"
#एकच_जिद्द_रिफायनरी_रद्द

https://twitter.com/bsdrvs/status/1654355790675992576

Context:

A year ago, Modi & the Supreme Court colluded to topple the government in Mumbai remotely.

Since then, @Dev_Fadnavis is focused on grabbing land and giving it to rich people.

In Aarey colony, Pune, Konkan, and elsewhere, crony projects getting fast tracked.

Between 2019 and 2022, Maharashtra generally didn't have violence or crackdowns or police action. In fact, Uddhav got props for his transparent handling of COVID.

The thing is, Uddhav, while a politician, is a bit of a tree hugger.

That did not sit well with the BJP.

The BJP govt in Maharashtra until 2019, which Uddhav was a coalition partner in, planned a lot of so called "infrastructure" projects that were in fact real estate projects. Completely ignoring any environment related concerns cos "development".
Real estate riches basically.

But after the Nov19 elections returned a hung assembly, Uddhav Thackeray, who reads books and all, and had presumably read the Niemoller poem, decided to break up with BJP and go with the very slightly left of center parties. And became CM.

And hit pause on the projects.

Before he became a politician, Uddhav was a nature photographer. So he really genuinely has a connection with nature.

Once he was CM instead of the corrupt duplicitous Fadvya, he actually started asking for actual environmental impact studies and all.

Who would've thunk!

This obviously inconvenienced a lot of billionaires wanting to get even richer.

No matter how much PR they do for Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, etc, the big big enchilada is still Maharashtra!

Lots of money to be made there through contracts you can buy with electoral bonds.

So MoSha weaponized federal investigation agencies, did other shady shit, and remotely toppled Uddhav. With a pliant court doing what BJP wanted.

Since then, the new BJP govt has been focused on land grab and mob violence against Muslims. Things Uddhav didn't allow.

Konkan is a pristine and mostly untouched coastal region that focuses more on ecotourism than random factories.

MoSha & Fadvya want to put a refinery in this ecological wonderland.

Even if it destroys the past, present, and future of a region that is doing very well as it is.

MoSha & Fadvya priorities are all real estate related

- cut down huge swathes of Aarey Forest
- blow up #VetalTekdi in Pune to build multi crore apartment complexes... And a small road
- destroy swathes of Konkan to build a refinery no one wants
- bullet train excuse land grabs

Maharashtra doesn't have a real cabinet or even a real chief minister since June 2022.

What they have is a gormint focused on pushing through as many real estate cash cows as possible, knowing that they'll mostly lose the next election in Nov 24.

So the last 11 months, the Maharashtra govt has only focused on

- land grabs
- attacking Muslims, creating a non existent l0vejih@d narrative
- finding stuff for Shinde to inaugurate

Most nakedly mercenary govt the state has ever had. And it's had a few!