SUJAY MEHDUDIA, The Hindu, June 12, 2013
The Gujarat Chief Minister was not a leader who would unite the Indian polity, but a divisive leader and a fountainhead of communalism, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma says.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is an arrogant man who has mastered the art of using untruths and half truths to his advantage and making sensational claims, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said on Tuesday. Mr. Modi was not a leader who would unite the Indian polity, but a divisive leader and a fountainhead of communalism, he told The Hindu here.
Mr. Sharma said the recent developments in the BJP were its internal problem. If anyone believed the Congress was worried, it was totally misplaced. “I think those who actually need to worry are the senior leaders within his party and the constituents of the NDA. He has been given a position by a divided party which is in disarray and rudderless.’’
Mr. Modi was a leader who beat his own trumpet. His sycophants too were busy beating drums, unmindful of the reality around them. “It is shocking that Mr. Modi could resort to such lies and mislead the people with claims that fall flat on their face when put to scrutiny. His claims on developments in Gujarat are full of untruths. What I am giving are official figures and not something manufactured as Mr. Modi does all the time.”
Gujarat was way behind Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or even West Bengal in access to safe drinking water. Gujarat led the national average with a 25.66 per cent school drop out rate, well above States like West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tripura and Sikkim. In literacy, Gujarat was way behind States like Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Manipur. The percentage of people living below the poverty line stood at 31.8 per cent in Gujarat as compared to 29.9 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, 24.1 per cent in Haryana and 19.7 per cent in Kerala. Infant morality rate was 44 per cent in Gujarat compared to 30 per cent in Delhi, 13 per cent in Kerala, 28 per cent in Maharashtra, 14 per cent in Manipur and 24 per cent in Tamil Nadu. What kind of development model was this, he asked.
Mr. Sharma said he was astonished when Mr. Modi talked about the State attracting the highest foreign direct investment (FDI). He gave out highly inflated figures every time. The Reserve Bank of India statistics from March 2000 to March 2013 painted a very different picture.
From May 1999 to April 2004, when NDA was in power, the country attracted $25 billion in FDI. During May 2004 to April 2013 of UPA rule, the country attracted $265 billion. According to figures given by RBI regional offices for the period April 2000 to March 2013, Mumbai emerged on top with $63 billion. Delhi got $36 billion plus, Chennai $11.08 billion and Bangalore around $10 billion. Gujarat got $8.6 billion in 13 years, he said.
Keywords: Anand Sharma, Narendra Modi, Gujarat development indices
Related articles
- Why We Protested Against Narendra Modi (kractivist.wordpress.com)
- The unmasking of Narendra Modi #mustread (kractivist.wordpress.com)
kracktivist 
Jun 13, 2013 @ 19:17:15
It’s good that people with high standing like Mr. Anand Sharma come out with the truth.
The whole Modi euphoria has been constructed over time with a heavily funded underground internet madrasa that encourages an illusionary “return to Hindu dominance bordering on a desire to exterminate all other groups starting with the elimination of the Gandhi Family” One Modi cult member on my Facebook account said violently “Mark my words…in seven to eight years from now on, no one will even have a memory of the Gandhi Family. Modi will decimate them entirely!” I wanted to ask her what she meant by the term ‘decimate” but blocked this individual as this seemed a better idea than having her leave terrorist type remarks on my homepage. This individual was so brainwashed that she would accept no one else but her Indian version of Jim Jones and no amount of presenting her with real actual figures from reliable research studies would enter her brain areas of study or comprehension. It seemed as if the latter had totally been replaced with 100% cult faith. With every article or paid news item on political events surrounding this dictator, we find hundreds of comments, written in poor english, interspersed with hindi that Modi is better than Vajpayee himself and even Sardar Patel!” Any comments anti modi are greeted with anger and personal insults. These comments (which I suspect are put in by a whole group of paid internet staff made up of Modi gaga individuals) also place negative remarks of each and every other CM that could be a possible contender for the post of PM. When I asked some of these commentators if they had been to Gujerat, At first the response was “Why are you spoiling our campaign for Modi” Then it was replaced with the lie that they were living in Gujerat. When I checked their facebook profiles they were all given as living in New Delhi. It was then that I realized that the whole hysteria was well organized and planned by a marketing group from the U.S. especially as the terms used were Change and development and also the U.S. tendency of negative programming against the rivals to make the buyer of this sales gimmick Modi look good when compared to others. This programming is going on and is slowly taking hold of individuals all over the country who do not have strong minds or time to use analytical skills. What is bogus as information seems now real, as the seeding took place a few years ago and the watering is going on with heavy fertilizers of hyped development claims. If other CM’s do not expose this trickery or do not indulge in some kind of internet promoting techniques, we might end up with a large number of brainwashed individuals who will be hard to deal with and who will be willing to commit any act of terror to put their cult leader in the position they imagine he should be. Please convey this info to various States as we are living in dangerous times with megalomaniacs resorting to underhand techniques to trick our population into what can become an Iraq under Saddam Hussein. This is no laughing matter. CM’s of other States can mitigate this scary scenario by putting in paid news about their achievements, blocking out negative info about them (as Modi is doing) and keep presenting their output in comparison with other States. Only then will some sanity return to these individuals most of whom are disadvantaged Hindus (who have not had an english speaking background and feel left out) and who will not have any other Hindu PM beside Modi, even though the others are of their own religion…and not christian or muslim and have way better administrative skills and performance.
May 14, 2014 @ 14:17:00
Angela you are right!