Even as the Gujarat Congress is planning a State-wide campaign from February 6 for a fortnight to “expose” Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Mahagujarat Janata Party has come out with figures to claim that the outcome of the Vibrant Gujarat Investment Summits did not amount to much, with his “achievements” ranging from a mere 5.5 to 26 per cent.
MJP president Gordhan Jhadaphia, who served as a Minister of State in Mr. Modi's Cabinet before he quit the BJP to form his own party in 2007, said the details he had gathered from the government departments under the Right to Information Act “totally exposed” Mr. Modi's tall promises and claims of achievements through the “much-trumpeted” bi-annual gatherings of industrialists from the country and abroad.
While crores of rupees was being spent from the exchequer for organising the summits and visits of delegations led by Mr. Modi's Ministers to various States and abroad to woo investments, the outcome was a big disappointment, he said.
According to the official figures, as against Mr. Modi's claim of having signed 17,705 memoranda of understanding with industrial houses in the five summits held so far since 2003, the number of units that had come up or that were at various stages of implementation was a mere 4,617, an achievement of just 26 per cent. These included 2,907 projects completed and 1,710 projects under implementation, Mr. Jhadaphia said.
It was by far the “best achievement” of Mr. Modi, compared with what the government had achieved in attracting investment or generating employment. The investments promised in the five summits was an astronomical Rs. 39.60 lakh crore, but the investments made in the projects completed was just 1.85 lakh crore, while another Rs. 84,748 crore would be invested in the projects under implementation. This amounted to a mere 6.8 per cent of the government's claims.
The scenario was still worse in jobs given to unemployed youth, Mr. Jhadaphia said. Mr. Modi had announced that job opportunities were being created for 1.01 crore people, but only 2.98 lakh people were employed in the projects completed and another 2.69 lakh would be absorbed in the projects under implementation.
Surprisingly, the government had never set any target of investments for delegations while sending them to foreign countries, and no figures were available to judge their performance, he said.
While Mr. Jhadaphia vowed to sensitise the people and call Mr. Modi's “bluff,” Congress president Arjun Modhwadia said his party's ‘Give Accounts Give Answers' campaign, to begin on Monday, would expose the “rampant corruption” in the regime and the “misuse” of public funds for his “personal propaganda” through the Sadbhavna Mission fasts.
Mr. Modhwadia said the amount of corruption was so high that scam money could fund major projects such as the Narmada dam, free power supply to poor farmers and free education in medical and engineering colleges. More than Rs. 5,000 crore was being spent on Mr. Modi's “five-star political drama” of Sadbhavna Mission fasts, which he said were meant only for his personal publicity. “Mr. Modi will have to account for his expenses and give answers to the people for spending money from the exchequer for his personal political gains.”
However, despite political criticism of the Sadbhavna Mission, the Gujarat High Court had not entertained any petition questioning the expenditure on the fasts. Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J.B. Pardiwala, sitting on a Division Bench, reserved their orders on admitting a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by the president of the Nationalist Congress Party's women's wing.
