BackJayalalithaa dismisses Gujarat growth model
TN chief minister says Gujarat only focused on marketing while she is concerned with helping the people in her state
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Chennai: In the mind of Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, the Lok Sabha election in her state is not about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi but about her own suitability for the post.
Nor should anyone waste their breath talking about the so-called Gujarat model of development, she seemed to suggest on Thursday when she claimed that her own state was more developed than Modi’s Western perch.
The direct attack was surprising—though analysts say the Tamil Nadu chief minister is almost as unpredictable as she is decisive—because it came a day after Modi, in an interview to ANI, said that while he considered Jayalalithaa a political opponent, he shared a cordial relationship with her.
Dismissing the Gujarat story as an illusion (maya), she said that state was only focused on “marketing" while she herself was more bothered about improving the lot of the people of Tamil Nadu and “not advertising the development of the state". She was speaking at an election rally in Krishnagiri.
Her comments came a day after Modi, in a meeting at nearby Salem, said the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP would inter-link rivers so that the state would not face any scarcity of water—a big issue in Tamil Nadu.
Jayalalithaa on Thursday said this would require ₹ 6,500 crore in Tamil Nadu alone and asked whether the BJP would spend that kind of money.
A state is considered developed only if it does well in human development parameters and in that context Tamil Nadu’s performance exceeds Gujarat’s, she added.
Tamil Nadu has just 11.3% of its residents living below the poverty line while Gujarat has 16.6%.
The mortality rate of children who die before the age of one is 21 per 1,000 in Tamil Nadu and 38 in Gujarat, she said. In 2012-13, her state attracted foreign direct investment of ₹ 15,255 crore, while Gujarat did only ₹ 2,676 crore, Jayalalithaa said.
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