Kejriwal in Gujarat, to target Modi's governance model
The AAP leader will be in Bahucharaji near Mehsana to take up the cause of a section of farmers who say their land was wrongly given to Maruti for its new car plant.
Arvind Kejriwal arrived in Gujarat on Wednesday to take on Narendra Modi's governance model.
However, none of the issues the AAP leader is expected to take up during his three-day trip has the potential to put the Gujarat Chief Minister in a tight spot.
In the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections, former BJP MLA and now AAP leader Kanu Kalsariya and Gandhian leader Chunibhai Vaidya had raised the same issues.
The allegations are that the Modi government gave away crucial agriculture and grazing land to industrialists at the cost of farmers and has constantly shown a tilt towards corporate houses.
Kejriwal, the former Delhi chief minister, will be in Bahucharaji near Mehsana to take up the cause of a section of farmers who say their land was wrongly given to Maruti for its new car plant.
This is the same issue that was raised by Vaidya's supporters last year. The idea is to force Maruti to withdraw under pressure and then project it as a failure of the Modi model.
Significantly, many of those who allege their farmland was wrongly given are encroachers of government land and are raising a hue and cry because they won't be able to cultivate the land now.
Kejriwal is accompanied by Kalsaria and Gujarat AAP head Suikhdev Patel.
From Bahucharaji, Kejriwal will go to Radhanpur, a town in Patan district not far from the India-Pakistan border, where he will highlight the poor civic amenities including water to pooh-pooh Modi's claims on development.
From Radhanpur, he will go to Bhachau town in Kutch where he will raise local issues and address a public meeting.
After a night in Bhuj in Kutch, he will leave for Mundra on Thursday to meet a section of fishermen who say their rights have been violated by the Modi government by giving land to Adani Group of industrialist Gautam Adani who has his Mundra Port and other units at the spot.
In Mundra, Kejriwal will again raise the issue of the Modi government allegedly giving crucial land to Adani Group at throwaway prices in 2005.
Adani Group says that no favour was done by the Modi government which had given it uneven land for industrial growth and at prices that were not low.
"We spent a huge amount in reclaiming this uneven land and due to our arrival prices of land went up 50 times benefiting local farmers. So this land allotment to us has augured well for locals. Those raising hue and cry are a small group of fishermen who wanted to extract money. Modi's rivals should go into the facts before roping us in their battle with us," said the Adani Group spokesman.