By IANS,
Ahmedabad : Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi must start giving credit to the Congress party in public forums for laying the foundation for the rapid industrialisation of Gujarat during the early 1990s, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said here Saturday.
“Investments flowed into Gujarat much before Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi came to power in the state. More than 35 percent of the investment for Gujarat’s infrastructure development came during the Congress rule in the state. The chief minister should stop propagating that all the investments came to Gujarat when he assumed power,” Singhvi said at a news conference Saturday.
Polls to the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies in Gujarat will be held April 30.
Singhvi said that in the early 1990s Gujarat occupied third place in the country’s industrial development chart, long before Modi and his government came to power in the state.
“Even during the recessionary period now, the Gujarat government has done precious little for the jobless workers from the diamond polishing and cutting industry in Gujarat,” Singhvi said.
Referring to the Indian Airlines plane hijacking case in 1999, Singhvi said: “Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah in a public statement made in 2006 said that (then home minister L.K.) Advani had repeatedly called him up asking for release of the terrorists Azhar Mehmood and his accomplices during the hijacking of the IC-814 Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar.
“Why did not Advani deny the statement by the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister in 2006? Advani even blamed the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for not being part of the meeting which decided to release the terrorists. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government could have consulted the opposition before releasing the terrorists and escorting them to Kandahar (Afghanistan).”
Singhvi charged that Advani, a former deputy prime minister, was also instrumental in securing release of Peter Bleach, convicted for waging war against the nation in the Purulia (West Bengal) arms dropping case, he added.