Bengal polls like freedom stir: Modi
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called the West Bengal Assembly polls a “movement for freedom” by people who want to be free from the shackles of a 35-year-long vicious cycle of “oppression”, a day after accusing Left Front government of not doing any development work in the state.
“I was surprised after what I saw in West Bengal. It was a whole new form of election there,” Mr Modi said while addressing a seminar organised by the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) here.
“It was not just some election, but a movement for freedom by the people who want to be free from the shackles of 35-year-long vicious cycle of oppression,” said Mr Modi, who on Saturday participated in an election campaign in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal.
The chief minister said that in West Bengal people purchase agricultural produce like potatoes from farmers for daily use only.
“I explained to farmers there about what happens in case of their counterparts in Gujarat, who also cultivate potatoes. A farmer in Banaskantha (Gujarat) cultivates potatoes which are sold in markets of Canada where it gets transformed into chips and is sold across the world. This is where government figures in,” Mr Modi said. He told the GCCI that in Jalpaiguri potatoes are sold only if people come and buy them otherwise they rot.
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Data in TN belies vote rise claims
Age Correspondent
Chennai
April 17: While the two arch rivals are happily counting the chicken in their baskets of poll constituencies, insisting that they are indeed winning broods, two interesting factors have popped up amid pollsters here. First, the excitement over an “unprecedented high” 78.12 per cent voter turnout — projected as eight per cent more than the 2006 figure of 70.58 per cent — could be misplaced and secondly, the huge turnout of women this time leaves the question wide open as to who, between the DMK of chief minister M. Karunanidhi and the AIADMK of J. Jayalalithaa, will benefit more from the “fair” vote.
Analysts point out that the actual difference in the voting percentage between 2006 and now will be only 2.18 and not eight per cent because the 2006 electorate was smaller than the 4.66 crore claimed by the EC.
During the last five years, the Election Commission undertook an elaborate exercise to clean up the electoral rolls by deleting bogus names, dead persons and duplicate entries.
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