Glare on Narendra Modi aide’s meet

Glare on Narendra Modi aide’s meet

Narendra Modi Ahmedabad, April 15: Lalit Modi and Narendra Modi’s home minister Amit Shah had last month asked industrialist Gautam Adani to bid for an Ahmedabad IPL team, Shah confirmed today hours after the Kochi franchise claimed to be the victim of a Modi-Modi nexus. Shah’s statement came amid widespread suspicion that Lalit Modi was out to get the Kochi franchise disqualified so that Ahmedabad could have its own IPL team — a dream nurtured by Narendra Modi ever since he became Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) president. Shah had met Adani (along with Lalit Modi) in the Motera stadium in his capacity as GCA vice-president. Adani announced his decision to bid for an Ahmedabad team the day after the meeting, which took place sometime before the aborted March 9 IPL auction that was followed by a successfully hosted one on March 21. Kochi franchise spokesperson Satyajit Gaikwad today alleged that Lalit Modi was targeting his team under pressure from Narendra Modi and former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje. Both Narendra Modi and Raje are in the BJP, and Lalit Modi was very close to Raje when she was in power. “Vasundhara and Narendra Modi may have put pressure on Lalit (Modi) to bring a team to Ahmedabad. There is politics involved,” Gaekwad said. Shah dismissed the allegation, blaming it “on a clever ploy by our political rivals to link Lalit Modi and Narendra Modi”. But if the Kochi franchise is disqualified, Shah was asked, would he want its promoters to shift their base to Ahmedabad? “It is a hypothetical question which I will not like to answer,” the minister replied. He was asked whether some promoters of the Kochi IPL team had met Narendra Modi. The allusion was to reports that some of these promoters — many of them with links to Gujarat — had offered to pull their money out of the Kochi team and invest in an Ahmedabad team. “I’m not aware of any such meeting,” Shah said. Vipul Shah, the Mumbai-based real estate developer who holds a 35 per cent stake in the Kochi team, too denied the allegation. “It is all media speculation, nothing else. No substance,” he said, ruling out withdrawing from the Kochi franchise and adding that he had not met Narendra Modi on this issue. Gaikwad had earlier said: “We were told that we won’t be allowed to work. The Adani group and Narendra Modi had a stake in the Ahmedabad IPL bid. After we won the bid, our investors spoke to (former BCCI chief) Sharad Pawar and asked him which city to choose. He said, ‘You can take your pick’, so we decided to take Kochi.” Former GCA president Narhari Amin, a Congress leader, confirmed that “both Modis were very keen” to get an IPL team for Ahmedabad. “But they failed. Primarily because both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are novices in this game,” he said. Amin added that if they had sought his advice, he would have told them to draft a few more industrial houses and raise the bidding amount by a few hundred crores.

Narendra Modi 2.०

Narendra Modi 2.०


When I walked into Milind Toravane's office, he was assuring three French dairy company representatives that he would address their startup worries. "I will make sure we take care of your problems," said the district collector of the eastern Gujarat town of Godhra. "Let's fix a deadline." Mu

ch was unusual about this conversation. First, it was occurring at Toravane's office at 4 pm on a Sunday. Second, the officer was forcing a deadline on himself. Third, there were no bribes, no favours (I checked).

I was in Godhra, a sulphurous town of 180,000, in the run-up to the verdict of the burning of the Sabarmati Express nine years ago. I dropped by to see Toravane because I heard he had overhauled the public distribution system (PDS), the network of shops that distributes cheap, subsidised grain to the poor. Since PDS reform interests me, Toravane told me how he used technology to destroy a transporter-storekeeper nexus and save the district about R3 crore every month.

This was impressive, but since the people transporting and selling PDS grain were closely involved with politicians, how did Toravane handle political pressure? "No MLA or minister ever calls me, ever," said Toravane.

It's Gujarat's chief minister, the much-lauded and much-hated Narendra Modi, who has set in place an atmosphere in which Toravane flourishes. Much has been written about Modi's emerging avatar: how he creates this responsive bureaucracy, how he courts India's business leaders (and vice versa), how he elicits promises of investments in excess of $400 billion, how he leads his state to a GDP growth of 11%, how it's time to put the past behind and look to the future.

Modi, his numerous supporters insist, is India's future. The argument: India has seen many bloody riots, Gujarat is no different. If India has to move on and prosper, we must not harp on the past. We hear everyone wants to move on, Hindus and Muslims.

Indeed, in Ahmedabad last week, the Dawoodi Bohras, a Gujarati-speaking Muslim sect of businessmen, invited Modi as chief guest to their annual meeting. Some Muslims I spoke to, including families of those accused of the Godhra train burning, acknowledged that even if respect and justice eluded them, the administration worked and peace reigned.

Godhra knows how debilitating frequent violence can be. Nearly half the townsfolk are poor Muslims, descendants mainly of the Mughals for whom the town was - as it's now for the Indian Railways - a north-south stopover. Riots were common to Godhra as far back as 1932-34, when Morarji Desai, India's former prime minister, was the additional district collector. During 1981-82, Godhra was under a year-long curfew, after riots sparked by the murder of four female school teachers.

With so many riots, the town has seen no lasting peace or progress. Today, Godhra is chiefly known for its supply of train drivers to the Indian Railways and its supply of dandiyas, the colourful wooden sticks, to the Hindu festival of the same name (the sticks are almost entirely made by Muslims).

The larger district beyond Godhra town, the Panchmahals, further reflects the Gujarat left out of 'Vibrant Gujarat' slogans. Large tribal populations have human-development indices on par with the worst in India; they coexist with General Motors's largest plant in India. A series of recent reports points to Gujarat's low standing on hunger and status of minorities. The Indian Express recently reported how many Muslim-owned businesses were adopting Hindu names. I have never seen Hindus and Muslims as segregated and separate as they are in Gujarat.

The state's hunger levels are on par with impoverished Orissa and Bihar. "Gujarat is an illuminating example in terms of faster economic growth, but in terms of human development, it presents a sorry spectacle," writes Indira Dutta, an Ahmedabad economics lecturer in a paper 'Education and Human Development in Gujarat'. While the Tata's Nano foray in Sanand was a well-executed project, some of Modi's big-business drive is steamrolling local concerns and jobs, as in coastal Mundra, where the Adani Group and the Gujarat government were this month issued notices by the Gujarat High Court for illegally taking over 231 acres of village land. Group owner Gautam Adani, the seventh richest Indian on the Forbes list of billionaires and the only Gujarati, is close to Modi.

It's too soon for the effects of Modi's administration to be as widespread as he would like us to imagine. Even before Modi, Gujarat was second only to Maharashtra in industrial output. That position has not changed. But Modi has packaged Gujarat and himself in a way the corrupt, bumbling Congress administration in Maharashtra never could.

A Gujarati magazine editor told me how Modi personally reviews all images shot for his publicity posters, sometimes asking for reshoots, and how he is very particular about what he wears. The editor endorsed Modi's go-getting approach, with a rider - whether officer, MLA or minister, it's hard to disagree with him, which is why Toravane receives no inconvenient phone calls.

Modi's biggest handicap remains his inability to apologise or deliver justice for the riots. No right-thinking Indian can forget a pogrom against any community, but especially not against a minority. India can't and must not forget the 1,200, mostly Muslim, victims of 2002, as it can't and must not forget the 59 Hindus whose horrific deaths sparked the subsequent carnage, as it can't and must not forget the 2,700, mostly Sikh, victims of 1984. The memories of these outrages fade but can't be forgotten.

In his recent book, Convenient Action: Gujarat's Response to Challenges of Climate Change, the Gujarat chief minister quotes Mahatma Gandhi: "One must care about a world one will not see." Modi must ponder those words.

Narendra Modi to get Canadian, US visa soon

Swati Chaturvedi

New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is likely to get a Canadian visa followed shortly by the much denied and coveted US visa, diplomatic sources at the highest level revealed to Zee News.

This comes in the wake of a billion dollar partnership which Gujarat, growing at the rate of 12 percent, has struck with US companies.

When contacted by Zee News, an official spokesman of the CM's office said, ''At this moment we have nothing to say on the matter.”

Overseas Indians and several business groups in the USA and Canada have been lobbying with the US State Department that it makes no sense to deny visa to Narendra Modi.

It seems that their efforts have borne fruit. Another group, The Overseas Friends of the BJP, have also been making efforts to secure the visa for Modi.

Modi’s office, however, did not offer any comments when asked about the CM's travel plans.

The Congress party has been using the denial of the US visa for a long time as a stick to beat Modi with.