Taking on chief minister Narendra Modi for the first time ahead of Gujarat Assembly elections, the Centre’s Group of Ministers (GoM) on media Wednesday countered the developmental claims being propagated by the BJP strongman.
Contesting Mr Modi’s case that Gujarat was ahead of the rest of the country, the GoM, on a visit to the state, also rejected his claim that the Centre was discriminating against the state, saying such allegations are levelled by every non-Congress state government.
The GoM comprising Union home minister P. Chidambaram, minister for information and broadcasting Ambika Soni and law minister Salman Khurshid was here on Wednesday to flag the achievements of UPA-II in its first three years. Assembly elections in Gujarat are due in December 2012.
Criticising the “Vibrant Gujarat” campaign of the Modi government, Ms Soni said, “This is a state which is saying it has developed (but) where malnutrition among women and children is higher than the national average. When malnutrition among women in India is 51 per cent, the figure of Gujarat is 55 per cent. In 2000, malnutrition among children here was 75 per cent but now it has risen to 80 per cent which is very high than the national average.”
“Vibrancy comes in the state economy when women and children of the state are able to stand up on their own,” she added.
Mr Khurshid refuted Mr Modi’s claim that Muslims were better off in the state, saying that “there is nothing here to indicate that minorities are living in a better condition.” — pti here in comparison to other states”.