Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday hit out at Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for his 'total failure' to deal with the situation arising out of COVID-19 and said that 'indecisiveness' is the biggest problem of his government.
Talking to reporters through video conferencing, the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly also said that reason behind this indecisiveness was the coalition government as well as its 'large scale dependence on bureaucracy.'
"Of course, coalition government is the reason behind the indecisiveness of this government. I think there is a large scale dependence on the bureaucracy. Political leadership has to take decisions. What decision a political leadership can take, bureaucracy can't take that decision," said Fadnavis.
He said the Chief Minister is new and he depends a lot on bureaucracy.
"He is scared also. It appears that he is scared of taking decisions. What will happen if decisions go wrong? Due to this, he is unable to make decisions. There is no coordination with bureaucracy. The much-needed assertiveness of political leadership is missing in this government," said Fadnavis.
The former Maharashtra chief minister also slammed Thackeray for lack of coordination among coalition partners as well as in bureaucracy.
"He (Thackeray) never held any position. It may take time to understand things. But he has completed six months. I think indecisiveness is the biggest problem in this government. There is no coordination even with the parties and also in bureaucracy," Fadnavis said.
The senior BJP leader blamed the flip-flop actions of the state government for large scale migration of daily wage labourers from the State and said the present situation in Maharashtra was due to its "strategical errors."
"Maharashtra is most affected state due to COVID-19. It seems the situation in Mumbai has gone out of the hand of the government. The government made strategical errors since the beginning of the first lockdown. It failed to manage the supply chain. Despite being a prosperous state, Maharashtra government couldn't provide necessary assistance to migrants while small states like Odisha did it very well. There was no proper decentralisation of supply. That led to large scale migration of people from the State," he said.
He accused the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance government of deliberately allowing the migrant labourers to leave the State.
"The migrant labourers wanted to return to their hometowns because there was dissatisfaction among them. They were not provided with the necessary requirements. It appears that the state government thought that Mumbai will be decongested and COVID-19 outbreak can be controlled if they return to their native places. But I think, it was a wrong view of the government," he said.
"Thousands of people were walking on Maharashtra roads but nobody stopped them. No one asked them why they were leaving the State. There were no arrangements for them. What does it mean? It means that the government wanted people to go," he further said.
Slamming the State government for its mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic in Maharashtra, Fadnavis said there were no beds available for patients in the government hospitals in Mumbai while half of ICU capacity in private hospitals were occupied.
"If the State government starts testing asymptomatic patients, the numbers will be very high. Despite a high risk, asymptomatic people are not being tested. The State government is doing less tests because of fear that numbers may go up. There is no control on the administration," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )