MahaGujarat Janta Party (MJP) president
Gordhan Zadaphia on Wednesday rubbished Chief Minister Narendra Modi's
claims of huge foreign direct investment (FDI) in the state in the last
five years, uninterrupted power, high employment and growth in education
sector.
“There is a myth about development
in Gujarat under Modi. A lot of publicity was done about the five Vibrant
Gujarat summits and FDI of Rs 39.60 lakh crore. But the figures revealed
through an RTI query show actual investment was only Rs 1.85 lakh crore,
which is just 4.68 per cent of the proposed investment,” he told reporters
here.
He maintained while 17,701 MoUs
were signed, only 1,907 projects were commissioned.
Zadaphia, who was minister of state
for home in Modi's cabinet before quitting the BJP and floating his
own party in 2007, claimed Modi had not revealed the real figures of
employment given to locals in the various industries set up in the state.
While the proposed employment was
one crore, the actual employment figure as on November 30, 2011 was
2,98,714.
“Gujarat today stands fifth among
states in terms of growth while it was second under Keshubhai Patel's
chief ministership. Entrepreneurship is inherent in the people of Gujarat,
it has nothing much to do with Modi being in power,” he said.
Zadaphia, who is still close to
RSS and its ideology, said he will field candidates against BJP in all
the 182 constituencies of Gujarat in the forthcoming state polls.
“I and my party workers go to
RSS sakha (meetings). BJP still has to decide its ideology. It is an
opportunistic party. MJP Is the real BJP of Deen Dayal Upadhyay (BJP
ideologue),” he said.
Zadaphia also alleged that Modi
had provided undue sops to industrialists to set up shop in Gujarat,
which led to draining of the exchequer.
These business houses had not delivered
on their side of the bargain and reneged on providing employment to
local people, he said.
Referring to a major car manufacturing
company, Zadaphia said it was given a Rs 33,000-crore waiver, stamp
duty and registration fee exemption and free power. However, the company
has not kept its promise of giving 20 per cent jobs to locals.
“Ministers in Modi's cabinet went
around the world looking for FDI under Vibrant Gujarat but nothing came
of it,” Zadaphia claimed.
The former minister alleged the
state was lagging behind in Human Development Index at the 10th position
and stood at sixth position in per capita income.
He said even the claims of 24 hour
uninterrupted power supply to the whole of Gujarat was a myth. “Gujarat
is generating power at Rs 14 per unit and selling it to other states
at Rs 3.50,” he claimed, adding that there were 4,50,000 pending applications
for power connections in tribal areas of Gujarat.
“Farmers get only eight hours
of power when earlier they used to get 16 hours everyday,” he said.
Zadaphia also said the number of
students enrolling for primary education in Gujarat had fallen by 14.50
lakh.