The city of Mumbai may be falling apart from wear and tear, but that cannot stop the campaign machinery. A day after the collapse of a foot overbridge near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) railway station in Mumbai — an incident that killed six and injured more than thirty — Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is holding poll meetings and rallies with his party’s alliance partner Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Fadnavis addresses the first meeting an Amravati at around 12.30 pm on Friday and even tweeted that he spoke about the ‘achievements’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Spoke on achievements of Hon PM @narendramodi ji, his vision for #NewIndia , basic principles and strong foundation of BJP-ShivSena alliance.
I am thankful to our pillars, karyakartas of BJP and ShivSena for such great response at Amravati ! pic.twitter.com/LWeubvSMFF— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) March 15, 2019
The irony of speaking of his party’s achievements in the immediate aftermath of a major governance failure was apparently lost on him.
The chief minister is schedule is packed, with the second meeting scheduled for 3 pm at Nagpur.
The decision to continue with campaigning in the wake of this tragedy has elicited negative responses on social media, as many people drew parallels with Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning in the wake of both the Pulwama terror attack and the capture of Wing Commander Abhinandan.
#MumbaiBridgeCollapse : CM @Dev_Fadnavis continued with his election campaign#PulwamaTerrorAttack : PM continued with his sight seeing and propaganda film shooting.
Power hungry #BJP leaders are heartless and blinded. #ModiHaiToMumkinHai#BJP_भगाओ_देश_बचाओ
— R!zw@n (@riz1ahamed) March 15, 2019
What kind of a CM is Fadnavis – continues his election campaign after people die in #MumbaiBridgCollapse
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) March 15, 2019
CM Fadnavis is like #PMModi. Both enjoy campaigning even as some catastrophe might have taken citizens' lives somewhere in India#MumbaiBridgeCollapse #ModiHaiToMumkinHai https://t.co/bmcG66FytA
— Truth Seeker (@anupamdeb775) March 15, 2019
https://twitter.com/akashbanerjee/status/1106417442371391490
Then again, it was also a BJP spokesperson — Sanju Verma, the chief spokesperson and co-convener of the Intellectual Cell of BJP Mumbai — who blamed pedestrians for the infrastructural collapse on television hours after the incident.