The Gujarat Assembly elections are still some months away but the BJP has kick started its campaign with its star campaigner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attending half a dozen events and several rallies on the first day of a two-day visit to his home State on Monday.
After a massive roadshow in Surat on Sunday, Mr. Modi inaugurated a hospital run by a Patidar trust, ice cream and cattle feed factories of the Surat dairy and a diamond polishing unit in the city and an irrigation project used waters of the Narmada in Botad, Saurashtra on Monday.
For tribal rights
He also attended a government event in Silvasa, in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Addressing a gathering of tribal people in Silvasa, the Prime Minister slammed the previous Congress regime for not giving tribals land rights in the Union Territories.
“They were in power for 10 years, but they had always put the States on the docks (for not giving land rights)... not even a single tribal in the Union Territory was given land rights,” he said.
His visit to Surat to inaugurate a hospital set up by a Patidar trust was apparently an attempt to woo Patidars, who have been on warpath over the issue of reservations in education and government jobs.
