Chennai: Hitting out at the BJP over its campaign on lack of development in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa Monday said the state’s human development index was better than that of Gujarat ruled by Narendra Modi.
Addressing an election rally here, Jayalalithaa said: “It is the human development index that shows whether a state has attained development and whether that has benefitted the poor and the middle class.”
Reeling off statistics, the chief minister said 16.6 percent of Gujarat’s population was below the poverty line, while in Tamil Nadu it was 11.3 percent.
She said 38 children die in Gujarat before the age of one, whereas in Tamil Nadu the figure is only 21.
She also said 122 women die in Gujarat during child delivery, whereas in Tamil Nadu the figure is only 90.
On agriculture, Jayalalithaa said food production in Tamil Nadu during 2011-12 was 101.51 lakh tonnes whereas in Gujarat it was 88.74 lakh tonnes.
She also said the number of industries and workers in Tamil Nadu were higher than in Gujarat.
Jayalalithaa said Tamil Nadu attracted foreign direct investment of Rs.15,252 crore in 2012-13 as against Gujarat’s Rs.2,676 crore.
The chief minister also said there were 479 incidents of communal violence in Gujarat during 2005-2013 whereas in Tamil Nadu it was only 200 during the same period.
Jayalalithaa also hit out at Gujarat over the public distribution scheme (PDS), saying 63 percent of PDS food items in Gujarat are sold in the black market, while the percentage in Tamil Nadu was only four.
Crime against women in Gujarat between 2001-2012 went up by 65 percent, while in Tamil Nadu it went down by 29 percent, she said.
Jayalalithaa said that in rural and urban Gujarat the average amount spent by a person was Rs.1,430 and Rs.2,472 respectively, while in Tamil Nadu the figures were Rs.1,571 and Rs.2,534.
The crowd cheered when she asked: “Who is the best administrator? Is it Gujarat’s Modi or Tamil Nadu’s Lady?”
BJP leaders here have been asking whether the factories in Tamil Nadu were functioning to their full capacity due to the severe power shortage in the state.
Modi, while campaigning in the state April 13, charged the AIADMK and the DMK of taking people for granted.
The BJP leader also made fun of the power shortage in Tamil Nadu, saying a 12-year-old boy from Gujarat would not understand why there is power cut when he comes to Tamil Nadu. He added there was no such outage in Gujarat.