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Updated: Jun 13, 2020 22:19 IST

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has cancelled his Russia tour which was scheduled to take place from August 12 to 14 in the wake of floods in different parts of the state. He was to be part of a central government delegation led by Railways, Commerce and Industries minister Piyush Goyal and comprising of chief ministers from five states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Goa and Gujarat along with Maharashtra.

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The CM held several rounds of meetings with state and district administrations over the last six days to take stock of the flood situation across Maharashtra. He also called off the first phase of his Maha Janadesh Yatra on Tuesday.

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The Opposition has strongly criticised Fadnavis and his government, alleging that they were late in responding to the flood situation which resulted in intensifying the woes of the affected people in Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara.

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According to the officials from the Mantralaya the CM has opted out of the tour which is intended to attract investment in industries and infrastructure. Maharashtra will sign MoUs for investment in tourism, hospitality, human research development sectors among others. According to the officials, the three day tour is for the strategic meetings with the political and business fraternity ahead of prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia in September.

“The delegation was supposed to meet vice president of Russia and industry leaders and sign memorandum of understanding with them for the investment. Bhushan Gagrani, principal secretary in the chief minister’s office and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation CEO P Anbalagan were to be part of Maharashtra delegation. Now, only Anbalagan has joined the Central delegation and will take care of administrative formalities,” said an official who works in the Mantralaya.

A delegation of 200 FICCI representatives are also accompanying the Central delegation, out of which 40 members are from Maharashtra.