Gujarat: Vibrant PM’s Global Showcase!
BY R.K. MISRA
A new year is a harbinger of hope. Optimism
is the flavor of the season; so let’s go along.
Gandhinagar, the state capital of
Gujarat, is glowing like the peach
coloured skin of an affluence soaked offspring. One of three man-made cities in
India after Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar, it is decked up like never before. Gujarat’s first woman chief
minister, Anandiben Patel has done in a
few months what Narendra Modi could not , even in thirteen years. She has given
an absolute makeover to Gandhinagar. The city has turned spanking new and could
easily be mistaken for an American creation. As it stands today purely in terms
of civic showmanship, it could do the country proud. How long it can remain
this way in the face of our pan-spitting, street littering ways is anybody’s guess. But for the moment lets luxuriate
in likeable thoughts.
The reason for this massive effort at
makeover is that Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar is hosting the
Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas, normally held in Delhi from January 7-9 and the
Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit from January11 to 13.January 14
happens to be the kite festival of ‘Uttran’ and the state would like to
use this mega-event week to showcase
it’s cultural-tourism potential to the large number of visiting guests from various parts of the country and abroad.
Besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, UN
Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, vice-president Hamid Ansari and state heads of
other countries,30 fortune 500 company CEOs besides 200 others of high global
profile are slated to attend. Over 5000 delegates for the Pravasi Bhartiya
Diwas (PBD) and 10,000 delegates for the Investors’ summit are expected. There is not a single room available in any hotel in
the twin cities of Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar and the State Real Estate builders
body has been requested to make available 300 luxury flats lying unsold and an
agency requisitioned to furnish them. In all, a hundred chartered planes are
expected at the Ahmedabad airport but
there is facility for hardly 30,the other planes will have to go to other
airports in Gujarat or in neighbouring states to park. Three thousand luxury
cars-the likes of BMWs and Mercedes are on call for cab duty (daily rentals
anywhere between Rs10,000 to Rs 25,000, say media reports)to ferry the top of
the tops. Two hundred and fifty new jeeps for escorting convoys of VIPs, over 500
CCTVs on the airport-Gandhinagar road alone ,three new helipads, a special PMO
at the cost of Rs 6 crores for the PM, Harley Davidson motorcycles for the
police… the list goes on and on. An over
10,000 security contingent is in deployment and this includes representation
from all conceivable national security agency.
A high level meeting with the top brass of the three
defence wings was held and a
special control room has been set up to
coordinate with all three wings of the armed forces and Coast Guard, according
to chief secretary D.J.Pandian.
The past Gujarat Investors Summit, Modi reveled with
announcement of Rs one lakh crore worth of MOUs, even more to showcase it’s
success. Now the official version is that there will henceforth be no MOU
announcements as this present seventh edition of the summit is donning the role
of a business facilitator for other states as well. But Uttar Pradesh has
already struck a discordant note with
it’s government claiming that chief minister
Akhilesh Yadav’s posters put up on the occasion in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar are being pulled down! Gujarat
government, has meanwhile, let it be known unofficially, that over 22,000 MOUs
are likely to be signed at the summit.
According to highly reliable sources a
sum of Rs 200 crores is being spent to show the best face of Gujarat. Old-time
state watchers admit that even
during Modi’s tenure so much resources
were not splurged on sprucing up the city during previous Vibrant Gujarat Investors’ summits. The simple answer is that previous summits
showcased the state and thereby the state chief minister. Now, the two
events are meant to showcase the work of a Prime Minister and India is too
vast and six months too small a timespan
for it. Besides, there is hardly anything tangible and concrete to show at
the national level; so Modi has to fall back on the past, to project his future and Gujarat must pick up
the bill!
As the state pulls out all stops to this end, the run up is also marked by
a strategically timed RSS conclave in Ahmedabad. A three day RSS
conclave from January 2 to 4 attended by it’s entire top brass besides over
25,000 activists has just concluded last
Sunday. It was here that Sangh ideologue M.G.Vaidya projected the not- so-
subtle distinction between ‘homecoming’ (ghar vapasi) and religious conversion terming the first as
voluntary and the second as forced. The
clear defiant message emanating from the
meet was that the voluntary
return agenda was age-old and shall continue irrespective of the murmurs.
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi
could not make it due to his ‘busy’
schedule, his bête noir Sanjay Joshi and sangh sevika, Anandiben Patel did attend. This
Sangh show of strength in Modi’s backyard with its emphasis on home-coming/ religious conversion at a time
when he is set to showcase his
life’s biggest developmental achievement has great significance with far reaching political implications.
Interestingly, small peepholes sometimes provide big insights. Three small news items in today’s (Sunday)
newspaper made for interesting reading. The first item was how a deputy
collector in Gujarat with a monthly salary of Rs 46,000 had been
depositing Rs 49,000 every day in the bank
account of his wife for three years and according to his wife he owns
properties worth over Rs200 crores. The second
news item was a detailed account of
how a national intelligence
operation in the high seas off the Gujarat coast had led to the busting of a
possible terror attempt from across the borders and the destruction of
the fishing vessel. Some achievement
this but back home is a different story.
The third item was an account of how thieves had celebrated new
year by burgling the district
court in Gandhinagar and taken time out to sit within and have a
celebratory eating programme before
leaving. All this when the city was
teaming with cops who had turned Gandhinagar
into an impregnable fortress in view of the forthcoming high profile events but could not stop petty
thieves from burgling a court! Judge for yourself. Happy New Year folks!.
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