Amruta Fadnavis vs Shiv Sena: Thane civic body to transfer salary accounts out of Axis Bank amid row over alleged favouritism

The Shiv Sena-ruled Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has decided to shift its salary accounts from Axis Bank to a nationalised bank. The directions to this effect were issued to officials by Thane Mayor Naresh Mhaske. The officials have been asked to transfer the accounts from Axis Bank to a nationalised bank.

The development assumes significance in view of the then Opposition’s charge that in his tenure as Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis was alleged to have misused his power and promoted Axis Bank, in which his wife holds a senior position, by ordering the transfer of accounts of police staff and others from public banks to the private bank. A petition was also filed in the Bombay High Court in this matter.

The upshot comes amid reports of Maharashtra Home department too deciding to transfer police salary accounts, worth Rs 11,000 crore annually, to a nationalised bank from Axis Bank.

This is among the first major decisions of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government that overrule the decision taken by the previous government after the ‘Mahaaghadi’ alliance came to power after Sena’s bitter tussle with BJP over power-sharing formula.

The development follows a war of words on social media between Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and Devendra Fadnavis’ wife Amruta. The Twitter spat between the two has become the latest talking point in state political circles.

It all began with Amruta Fadnavis’ tweet attacking Uddhav Thackeray while responding to her husband’s comment condemning Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his “My name is not Rahul Savarkar” remark.

In a series of tweets, Fadnavis said, “Rahul Gandhi’s statement is absolutely condemnable! He is nowhere close to even a single good deed of Veer Savarkar & his greatness. Not just this, he should not even do the blunder of considering himself as ‘Gandhi’! One cannot become ‘Gandhi’by just keeping his surname as Gandhi!”

While responding to the post, Amruta Fadnavis slammed the Sena chief and said that one cannot be a ”Thackeray” just by taking the surname. She tweeted: “Very true Devendra Fadnavis Ji! One cannot be a ‘Thackeray’ also by just putting ‘Thackrey’ surname after his name! One needs to be true, principled and should think for betterment of people & party members above his own family and power dynamics!”

Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi jumped on the bandwagon and hit back at Amruta, saying Uddhav Thackeray was living up to his name and Amruta Fadnavis was missing the point.

Amid mounting tensions, Devendra Fadnavis responded that some political workers stooped very low to troll his wife.

This is not the first instance that a Twitter spat broke out between Priyanka Chaturvedi and Amruta Fadnavis. Earlier this month, a duel erupted between them over reports that the government was planning to cut down around 1,000 trees in Aurangabad to build a memorial for Bal Thackeray.

Source: Financial Express