Modi harps on development feats

Gujarat has entered the election mode, with ruling BJP's prominent campaigner, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a couple of conventions in the tribal-dominated districts of the Panchamahals and Dahod on Sunday. He harped on the "development models" initiated by his six-year-old Government.

The tribal convention at Dahod and the women's convention in Godhra were largely attended. Mr. Modi received a tumultuous reception when he travelled in an open jeep to the venues, with hundreds vying with each other to have a glimpse of the Chief Minister.

Except for oblique references to the "failures" of the previous Congress governments to take the State on the path of progress, Mr. Modi avoided direct attack on his political opponents in the State or the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre. Even in Godhra, the scene of the train carnage that sparked off the brutal riots in 2002, he made no reference to the communal passions and his 40-minute address was totally dedicated to his Government's schemes for women's empowerment.

But while he dealt in detail with State Government schemes such as the Rs. 15,000-crore special package for tribals, the "Chiranjeevi" scheme for poor pregnant women and the "fortified" mid-day meal scheme for children in "anganwadis," he avoided reference to Central Government schemes for the poor and backward classes.He, however, said he was not sure if the UPA Government was "capable" of replicating Gujarat's "Chiranjeevi" scheme in other States as promised by the Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss when he visited Gujarat recently.

Mr. Modi painted a "dream tribal belt" from Umbergaon in south Gujarat to Ambaji in north, running through the entire central Gujarat districts.

The literacy rate here would be made comparable to any developed region.

There would be no tribal family below the poverty line, additional income would come from milch cattle or flower orchards, everyone would have houses and every house would have piped water supply, and there would be check-dams and watershed schemes. "I am making elaborate plans to achieve my dream," he said.

Sex ratio

In Godhra, he repeatedly referred to the State's declining sex ratio, harped on the Government's "save the girl child" scheme and warned medical practitioners of dire consequences if they carried out sex determination tests or aborted female foetuses.

He urged them to participate in development, not merely as a beneficiary but in the "decision-making" process as well.

One-day governance

Earlier, inaugurating a new building complex housing major Government district offices in Dahod, created in 1998 by bifurcating the Panchamahals district, Mr. Modi said that like one-day cricket he was striving to develop "one-day governance" under which anyone coming with a problem to any Government office should have it solved by evening the same day.