By IANS
Raipur : Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh has been advised to take a cue from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the architect of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) win in Gujarat, and script the party’s success in next year’s state assembly polls.
Several BJP leaders, including the party’s national joint secretary Saudan Singh and state secretary Ram Pratap Singh, who held a meeting with Raman Singh at party state headquarters here Sunday night, asked him to learn from Modi, who made the party proud by retaining power in Gujarat.
The chief minister’s two top cabinet colleagues, Home Minister Ramvichar Netam and Revenue Minister Brijmohan Agrawal, were also present at the meeting.
“Singh has been asked by party leaders at Sunday meet to be tough against bureaucrats to effectively execute development schemes at village levels, build up rural infrastructure facilities and also take bold steps to improve law and order situation in the state,” party sources told IANS Tuesday.
Sources also said that Raman Singh was asked by the party leaders to invite Modi in the second week of January to attend a function to launch the ambitious Food Security Scheme of the state. The scheme is targeted to provide rice at Rs.3 per kg to 3.4 million families of the state.
Several state unit senior leaders and legislators have recently opposed openly to Raman Singh’s style of functioning and accuse him of “being surrendered before bureaucrats”, who have blocked key development schemes since party came to power in Dec 2003.
Another problem, the Raman Singh government is facing currently is the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
According to official figures, the state has witnessed all time high 972 killings, including the casualties in Maoist-violence, in the first 10 months of this year.
About 857 rape cases, including 24 gang rapes, have been registered in this period, while 196 cases of kidnappings and 4,449 cases of theft have also been reported in the state.
However, the leaders are hoping the ‘Modi effect’ will help the party in Chhattisgarh to unite all its workers ahead of the next year’s assembly polls.