Development off track

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, had a bitter taste of his party's commitment to the development agenda - or lack of it. Not in Gujarat but in Chhattisgarh, where his party had been in power for more than a decade. The BJP recently organised one of its "Chai pe Charchas" (chats over tea) at Jagdalpur, the divisional headquarters of Naxal-infested division of Bastar. In the heart of the city, a huge crowd gathered to sip tea and chat with Modi through an outside broadcasting (OB) van. The only problem was that a huge traffic jam near Keshkal Ghat along the National Highway prevented the OB van from reaching its destination. Not that jams at the Ghat are new; it's just that the authorities in the ruling party have never done anything to sort out the problem. So the crowd at Jagdalpur only got to watch video clippings of Modi and returned disappointed.