Gujarat Chief MinisterVijay Rupanitook time out from his hectic campaign for the Assembly polls to speak about the elections, his tenure so far and other issues.
It is being said that the social coalition being stitched together by the Congress with Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani has been the strongest challenge to BJP rule in three decades.
We believe that these agitations in the name of community and society have lost the support of the people, since the three you mentioned have been exposed by their alliance with the Congress. They are behaving like agents of the Congress. Therefore, it is a kind of dhokebaazi , or fraud, in the name of the people they say they represent.
In fact, in this kind of alliance, the ticket distribution has become a problem for the Congress. Even today, if you read the local press, you will find that there is a lot of resentment against Alpesh Thakor in the Congress; even Hardik’s people lining up for ticket have taken out their anger against the Congress, evident in the incidents outside the party headquarters. These things have clarified the whole situation.
The Patidar samaj, the OBCs and Dalits will remain with the BJP and give the party their vote.
After three elections, Narendra Modi is not at the helm as Chief Minister this time. How does that affect your prospects?
When Modi ji was Chief Minister, the people of Gujarat gave him 121 seats [Gujarat Assembly has 182 seats], and now when he is Prime Minister, we will get more. That is because the earlier Central governments under the Congress used to have an anti-Gujarat attitude. In the many issues relating to Gujarat, they [the Congress] were always negative. Now, the people of Gujarat know that Modi ji thinks about their issues, and it is a golden opportunity for the State. With Modi ji at the Centre and a BJP government here, development will take on a more rapid pace. As [former] Chief Minister of Gujarat, Prime Minister Modi knows every tehsil of the State and the opportunities for development will be immense.
The controversy over the visitors’ book in the Somnath temple and the debate over Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s religious beliefs are being seen as a way for the BJP to distract from a tough campaign by the Congress.
We haven’t done a thing here. In the register kept at Somnath, it was Rahul Gandhi who signed and the Congress media coordinator who furnished details. Where does the BJP figure in all this? It is something that the Congress has done. The only thing we are saying is that the Congress appears confused about Rahul Gandhi. They are the ones who have created this issue. We are nowhere in the picture and haven’t reacted.
But it is always said that this kind of religious polarisation helps the BJP electorally.
If we benefit out of something that we had nothing to do with, how is that we are responsible for that something? The Somnath issue is entirely done by the Congress.
Reports indicate that farmers, specifically cotton and groundnut farmers, are in a fair bit of distress, not getting remunerative prices for their produce. As Chief Minister, how do you react to these reports?
The market value for groundnut today is ₹650 per 20 kg. The government is buying produce at ₹900 per 20 kg, and till now, the figures available with me show that 1,50,000 farmers have availed themselves of government procurement. I have already announced that the government will be procuring groundnut till March. For cotton, the market price is up and we have given ₹100 bonus above the support price. It is our responsibility that we provide the correct price to the farmer.
The Congress has portrayed the Goods and Services Tax as inimical to traders and as a cause for a slowdown in job creation.
These are not issues here. The last meeting of the GST Council addressed most of the issues that were being raised in Gujarat as elsewhere. Till today, every chamber of commerce that met me, or even small associations of traders, none of them have opposed the GST. Whatever issues they had with the measure, pertaining to technical details like assessments, filing of returns, delay in returns, issues with maintaining working capital in export firms, all these things have been sorted out. Today, in the entire Gujarat, the trading community is with the BJP.
On job creation too, Rahul Gandhi is misleading people. In the morning, he says 30 lakh people are unemployed, in the evening that figure goes up to 50 lakh. I have challenged him on these figures. I asked what is the authenticity of your figures. The Government of India publishes unemployment figures for the entire country; he doesn’t cite them. In job creation, Gujarat has been number one. The figures for 2016 show that Gujarat accounts for 83% of all new jobs created, the rest of the country accounts for the rest of the 17%. Look at the wide difference. Even in terms of registration of the unemployed at the employment exchange, these too are authenticated by government data. In Kerala, the figure is 35 lakh, in West Bengal the registration is at 70 lakh, the figure for Gujarat is just 6 lakh. So where is Rahul Gandhi getting these figures? Gujarat, in fact, provides employment to people from Amethi, the rest of U.P., and Bihar. Is there a comparable exodus of Gujaratis seeking jobs in these States?
As Chief Minister what have been your priorities so far and what are your plans if elected back?
In the term so far, our priority was to finish projects started by Modi ji as Chief Minister as his dream projects. In the next five years, the priority is to double farm income. For this, the focus will be on how irrigation water from the Narmada can be provided to Saurashtra, Kutch and North Gujarat. The SAUNI project that seeks to provide connectivity to 115 dams has been conceived. We are also going to step up our drive to attract investment in various sectors. The third is to develop the coast and tribal areas, where through the Sagarmala project, we aim to set up units for mass production as in China.
