Former Union minister and BJP MP Anantkumar Hegde is no stranger to controversial utterances that hog the headlines.
In December 2017, Hegde claimed the BJP government at the Centre would amend the Constitution and remove the word 'secular'. In May this year, Hegde tweeted in praise of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. On both occasions, Hegde eventually ended up doing damage control after outrage erupted.
But on Sunday, Hegde arguably waded into the realm of conspiracy theories when he said the BJP did a "drama" by making Devendra Fadnavis chief minister of Maharashtra for just 80 hours in late November. Fadnavis assumed office on November 23 with support from NCP's Ajit Pawar, but resigned four days later.
Speaking in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka on Sunday, Hegde was quoted by ANI as telling BJP supporters, "You all know our man in Maharashtra became CM for 80 hours. Then, Fadnavis resigned. Why did he do this drama? Didn't we know that we don't have majority and yet he became CM..."
Hegde then gave the reason. Hegde told the audience, "A chief minister has access to around Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre. He knew if Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena government comes to power, it would misuse funds meant for development. So it was decided that there should be a drama. Fadnavis became CM and in 15 hours, he moved Rs 40,000 crore back to the Centre.”
Interestingly, Hegde is not the first person with a rightwing ideology to bring up this conspiracy theory. On November 28—the day Uddhav Thackeray took oath as chief minister of the three-party coalition government—N.K. Sood, a former R&AW officer, claimed Fadnavis was made chief minister to “thwart” the Congress “design” to derail the bullet train project. Sood has nearly 10,000 followers on Twitter and has written a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Sood tweeted, “Fadnavis was caretaker CM till Nov 22 which didn't have any financial powers. Ajeet (sic) Pawar was rolled in 2 form Govt. 2 thwart Cong design to detail (sic) bullet train project. Bullet train funds transferred 2 Centre n released 5k crore 2 farmers 2 prevent misuse by new govt.”
Many other rightwing handles on Twitter also claimed Fadnavis was made chief minister hurriedly on November 23 with the aim of saving Central funds, in particular the bullet train project. Sood tweeted on Monday, that the Shiv Sena “would disrupt bullet train project. Similarly SS wd also disrupt oil refinery being built in Maharashtra with Saudi investment of $45 bn. But Centre would not be mute spectator to disruption of India's relations with Japan n Saudi Arabia”.
Ironically, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had announced on Sunday that his government would review the bullet train project. All three parties in the coalition government had criticised the bullet train project in the past and had hinted the state government would not provide its share of funds for it.