Fadnavis counters Pawar on aircraft unit, says no need to lie at this age

Pune: 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. 
BJP leader and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis however countered Pawar’s claim and slammed him saying at this age one should not lie so much. According to Fadnavis, the MoU for the project was signed in September 2021 when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government under the chief ministership of Uddhav Thackeray was in power. 
“At this age, there is no need to lie so much…Whose times Gujarat and sometimes Karnataka were number 1 in attracting investments, today they are a little more upset when Maharashtra is number 1. However, before the false narrative is set, Maharashtra needs to be told the truth once again…,” Fadnavis said in a long post on X explaining the timeline of the various developments in regard to the project. 
Earlier in the day, Pawar while addressing an election rally in the Baramati assembly constituency said, that 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, 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. 
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 the private sector setting up an aircraft FAL in India. 
The inauguration of the FAL at Vadodara by Prime Minister Narendra 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.