By TwoCircles.net Reporter,
Ahmedabad: Even as the controversy rages over Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi having been described as “future prime minister of the country” by a set of industrialists during the two-day Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors summit-2009 (VGGIS) here on January 12-13, state congress leaders reacted saying that Modi’s bid to project himself as prime ministerial candidate by using industrialists at the government sponsored function was nothing but an act of desperation to wash out his crimes of 2002.
Though Modi on Saturday clarified that he was not in the race for prime ministership and he endorsed the candidature of his mentor Lal Krishna Advani has been declared as prime ministerial candidate through a general consensus by the national party leaders, Gujarat Pradesh Congress committee leaders said that a handful of industrialists could not decide who would be the next prime minister of the country.
Senior Congress leader and Union Textile Minister, who once formed the core of the BJP in the state with Modi before 1995, says that if industrialists are too much impressed by Modi, they must join the BJP and then promote Modi as prime minister. But he said that Modi must know that industrialists had their own axe to grind and just wanted to curry favour with him because of their trade and business interests in the state.
While Reliance ADAG chairman Anil Ambani had commented that “Narendrabhai is the next leader of the India”, Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal had remarked: “If there is a CEO who can lead the country, it is Narendra Modi”.
Both the industrialist groups have their business interests in the state, and have signed MoUs worth crores of rupees at VGGIS. While Ambani’s company has proposed to set up a power project and a cement plant in the state, Mittal has already earned a contract for implementation of the government-aided multi-crore e-Gram project in the state.
Senior party leader and chief spokesperson of the party in the state Arjun Modhwadia said that “by prompting the corporate champions to project him as the one who can lead the country when the parliamentary elections are just round the corner, Modi has staked the claim for the coveted post and thus challenging the claim of his mentor L K advani”.
Modhwadia said that Modi knows well that he could not become prime minister with L K Advani still around, but he had deliberately raised the issue so that people forgot his crimes of 2002 which was haunting him and his associates in the state party unit. It was because of the human right violations of minorities, genocide of Muslims in 2002 and hounding out of Christians in interior tribal areas ever since Modi came to power in 2001, US has denied visit visa to Modi and European Union declared him as persona non grata thus banning his entry in any of the EU countries.
However, Modi’s party colleague and president of Gujarat BJP unit Purushottam Rupala says it is not right to link investors summit with Modi’s ambition to become prime minister. “Those linking the two are against the development of the state”’, he says.
However, political experts say there appears some logic in Modi using industrialists to project him as the next PM. Former professor of physics at the MS University and now the president of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) Juzer S Bandukwala says: “Modi is acting very cleverly. In the event of Advani being denied the prime ministerial post owing to former BJP leader and former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s opposition, Modi could jump into the ring and that is why he is in advance doing subtle propaganda about his candidature.”