‘Destination Gujarat’ for Modi govt
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, October 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government is in the midst of a full-blown attention to Gujarat. Meetings with state ministers hosted by the Central ministries are being held in Gujarat, and big tickets events to help the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party resonate with the people that Modi has an unmatched development agenda.
The Election Commission may announce dates of the Gujarat Assembly elections next month, while the hilly state Himachal Pradesh could go to the polls in November. While the BJP is undefeated in Gujarat for over two decades, the electorate in Himachal Pradesh have shown patronage for the revolving door outcome of the polls after every five years by voting out the incumbent government.
The Centre is hosting a meeting of the state law ministers and secretaries in Gujarat on Friday. The Modi government has hosted a few more meetings of the state ministers in Gujarat in the last few weeks, which included that of the environment ministers. The BJP has also flagged off vehicle-mounted yatras in the poll bound Gujarat to slowly warm up to the electoral challenge where Modi has made victory a habit for the party.
The BJP also hosted over 100 mayors and deputy mayors of the party-led municipal corporations in Ahmedabad, where the Sabarmati Riverfront model of development was showcased to the civic body leaders. The party insiders claim that more meetings of the state ministers to be hosted by the Central ministries are being planned in Gujarat, while the party too would scale up its engagements.
Five days long 14th edition of the Defence Expo is also being held in Gandhinagar, Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad and Porbandar to showcase India’s march in gaining self-reliance in the defence goods productions. The hoteliers in Ahmedabad are reaping the windfall gains out of the Defence Expo with room tariff blasting off the roofs after going up by more than five times the normal rates. The local businesses are also likely to gain from the big events being hosted in Gujarat, which could keep the trading community endeared to the ruling BJP in the state.
While the BJP has been winning elections in Gujarat since 1990, Modi had to latch on to the ‘Neech” remark of Congress’ Mani Shankar Aiyer to help the BJP win the last Assembly polls in the state with reduced strength, as the restive Patidars sought to derail the golden run of the saffron outfit.
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