Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s ambitious “Aao banayein apna Madhya Pradesh yaatra” (Come let’s build our Madhya Pradesh tour) has drawn flak from the Congress party in the State.
The tour, to be started on Tuesday from the Anuppur district and scheduled to cover various parts of the State in a helicopter over a three day-period, is being seen as a PR exercise by the CM.
“It is a political drama,” said State Congress president Suresh Pachauri. “The State is grappling with problems like malnutrition, poverty and increased crime and this is just a way of diverting the people’s attention from the real issues,” he said.
Attacking the CM on several issues including the State’s extremely worrying human development indicators, the State Congress has said all that the State government does is ask for more grants and funds from the centre in the name of the extreme backwardness and underdevelopment of the State.
“When the CM has himself accepted this state of affairs several times for planning commission funds, why doesn’t he do anything to solve these problems instead of announcing shams like “swarnim Madhya Pradesh” (golden Madhya Pradesh) and this latest tour?” asked the State Congress president.
The State Congress also pointed out the disappointing industrial development in the State. Terming the investment climate in the State as extremely unfavourable, the Congress has said the government had promised an investment worth Rs. 1,43,000 crore but only Rs. 387 crore have been invested from the year 2006-07 to 2008-09, with less than Rs. 70 crore in the small industries sector.