By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : In the run-up to the crucial state assembly elections in Gujarat, a group calling itself the Support Gujarat Progress Group as well as the Overseas Friends of BJP–USA (OFBJP) have been drumming up support among NRIs in the US and elsewhere to call and email their family and friends in the state to vote and support Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
While arguing that Modi is best for Gujarat since during his term the state has made tremendous progress, they blame the communal taint on his name to the “secular media” in India.
Their campaign has sent out over 100,000 emails and taken out full page advertisements in local Indian ethnic papers in Gujarati and English. The OFBJP ad credits Modi and his ministers for making Gujarat the No 1 state in India as per Rajiv Gandhi Foundation’s Economic Freedom Index.
The Support Gujarat group’s ads and website highlight the state’s growing prosperirty by quoting Tata group chairman Ratan Tata, “You are stupid if you are not investing in Gujarat.”
Chandru Bhambra, president of OFBJP, told IANS, “Our campaign is to create awareness about Modi’s achievements against casteism and other considerations.”
He believed Modi would be returned with a thumping majority. Praising him as a tireless administrator and incorruptible, Bhambra said Modi was the kind of politician India needed – mplying that he deserved to be a player at the national level.
Many of the otherwise apolitical Gujaratis in the US too seem to think highly of Modi.
Kanti Patel, a 72-year-old businessman in landscape services in Los Angeles, said, “Under Modi per capita income in the state has risen tremendously. He has brought glory to Gujarat and put it on the world map.” He has called people he knew in Gujarat to vote Modi.
Patel said media is the No 1 enemy of Gujarat and allegations against Modi have not been proven in a court of law.
A prominent New Jersey doctor, who refused to be identified, said, “I admit Modi has provided good administration to the state even though Í don’t agree with certain of his policies.”
He believed a majority of Gujarati Americans – nd every fifth NRI in the US is a Gujarati – support Modi.
But the Federation of Gujarati Associations of North America, when contacted, refused to comment on the magnitude of support for Modi among Gujarati Americans.
Meanwhile, a group aligned with the Overseas Indian National Congress, called NRIs for Secular and Harmonious India, has issued a press release harking back to the secular democracy vision of India’s founding fathers with an appeal to Gujaratis to “vote with your conscience”, that is, against Modi.
(Parveen Chopra can be contacted at [email protected])