Modi to visit Juhapura, draw devt plan

The move had been initiated before the controversy broke out over statements of Maulana Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi, the newly-appointed vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom, praising Gujarat's 'inclusive' economic growth. Some years back, a similar statement by Mufti Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui, Imam of Ahmedabad's Jama Masjid, praising development in Gujarat had created furore in the community.

The meeting is scheduled in mid-February. But the date may change if the heat generated by Vastanvi's statements does not cool off. If the meeting does take place, it could mean a complete sea-change for Juhapura, a place where Gujarat Police used to often come looking for terror suspects.

Political sources say the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has been directed to pump resources into Juhapura, the habitation nearest to the grand Sarkhej Roza, a Sufi monument as old as Ahmedabad, which will be celebrating its 600th birthday on February 26. AMC is drawing up a dossier that includes Sarkhej Roza as a proposed World Heritage Site, in the overall bid before Unesco for declaring Ahmedabad a World Heritage City.

In fact, a recent memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the AMC and Archeological Survey of India ( ASI), which allows AMC to develop the surroundings of monuments, is precisely aimed at sprucing up the heritage of Ahmedabad.

"I won't be surprised to see Juhapura completely transformed one year from now," says a BJP leader. Such a move would of course win more admirers for Modi in the Muslim community — something he requires to silence NDA ally and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who kept him out of the Bihar assembly elections.