UPA did more for Gujarat, boasts Cong

The Congress today came out with a “report card” on Gujarat — run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s poster boy Narendra Modi — to highlight how the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government gave more funds to the state than the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.

The report, prepared on the basis of government data procured under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, shows that while the NDA gave just Rs 25,935.1 crore to the BJP-ruled state, the UPA allotted Rs 59,989.83 crore (including share in central taxes) over the last five years, more than double what the BJP-led NDA gave to Gujarat.

In also illustrates that the UPA has done more for the development of Gujarat than the NDA by stating that projects which are directly implemented by the Centre (like airports and national highways) got allocations amounting to Rs 34,070 crore from the ruling UPA, while the NDA gave just 14,257.21 crore under these heads.

“For the development of Gandhinagar, our government gave Rs 1,150 crore while it didn’t receive a single penny from the NDA. If Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP candidate from Gandhinagar, can’t do anything in his constituency, how can he do something for the country?” said Arjun Modhwadia, the chief spokesperson of the Congress in Gujarat. The BJP has named Advani as its prime ministerial choice.

Entitled “The voice of the truth”, the report also tries to rob Modi of the credit of the state’s prestigious Narmada project. During the 2007 Assembly election campaign, one of Modi’s key plank was that his government had brought the Narmada water in various parts of the state. The Congress report shows that while the six-year-long NDA rule spent 164.29 crore for “Narmada, water resources and other irrigation projects”, the UPA allotted Rs 2,181.71 crore under these heads.

With an eye on farmers, the Congress report card claims the UPA, in its 2008 Union Budget, had announced spending Rs 2,395.32 crore under the loan waiver scheme. The NDA government had no such scheme.

In railways too, the Congress boasts of alloting more funds to various projects in Gujarat than the Vajpayee government. While the railway ministry gave Rs 49.96 crore to Gujarat, the UPA pumped 4,774.77 crore into the state.

Modhwadia also pointed out that Advani’s Gandhinagar got a new rail service during the UPA’s interim Railway Budget presented in February 2009.

Ever since presenting the 2008 Union Budget, the Congress leadership had been harping on the fact that the states never got so much financial support from the Centre before. This is the central campaign point of Congress leaders, be it Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

To hit back at the BJP on its “model state” of Gujarat, Modhwadia today came out with a 136-page report. The elaborate report tried to give details about every project in different sectors in the state. The report, however, says nothing about the outcome or the physical achievements of the government.

While the BJP showcases the golden quadrilateral, the east-west and the north-south road network project, initiated by the Vajpayee government as major development initiatives, the Congress today showed that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) allotted Rs 1,274 crore during the NDA rule in Gujarat, while it allotted Rs 6,021 crore during the UPA regime.