Former Union minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday claimed that the Final Assembly Line (FAL) of Tata Advanced Systems and Airbus in Gujarat was to be set up in Maharashtra, but was shifted at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Ratan Tata wanted the project to come up in Maharashtra, and in consultation with him, a 500-acre plot in Nagpur MIDC area was marked for it,” Pawar said, addressing an election rally in Baramati assembly constituency.

“This was during the Manmohan Singh-led government, of which I was a part,” Pawar said. “Our government changed and when Modi became the PM, he called Tata and told him to set up the factory in Gujarat,” Pawar said.

That project was to have generated thousands of jobs in Maharashtra, Pawar said. Thousands of jobs in Maharashtra were also lost when Modi asked Foxconn to set up the (semiconductor) factory, meant for Maharashtra, in Gujarat, the veteran politician claimed.

“The Prime Minister does not belong to any one state but has to think of the entire country,” Pawar said.

There has been no rebuttal of Pawar’s claims from the government or the BJP so far.

Providing a major boost to the government’s 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) programme, Monday's inauguration of the facility is the first instance of private sector setting up an aircraft FAL in India.

The inauguration of the FAL at Vadodara by Modi and Spanish President Pedro Sanchez on Monday came three years after the IAF formalised the acquisition of 56 Airbus C295 aircraft to replace its legacy AVRO fleet.

As per the contract, 40 units will be manufactured and assembled in partnership with TASL at this FAL, while 16 will be delivered to the IAF in ‘fly-away’ condition from Airbus’ final assembly line in Seville, Spain. To date, a total of six aircraft have already been delivered.

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