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Thursday, Aug 16, 2007
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Land allotment: Modi’s ultimatum to Centre

Manas Dasgupta

No people’s government in State: Patel

“Proposal lying with the Centre for the last three years”
Dissidents present at Patel’s meeting

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi threatened to adopt a confrontationist course against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre even as his archrival and predecessor, Keshubhai Patel, opened a front against him on Wednesday.

Both used the Independence Day celebrations as a platform to chart out their political course ahead of the Assembly elections in December.

Mr. Modi set the Gandhi Jayanthi (October 2) as the deadline for the Centre to clear his proposals for allotment of forest land to the tribals before he would act on his own.

Alleged delay

Speaking at the official State-level Independence Day celebrations after unfurling the national flag in Mehsana, Mr. Modi blamed the Centre for the alleged delay in the allotment of plots to tribals. He said the State Government had already allotted plots to about 3,000 tribal families and was awaiting the Centre’s approval for another 4,000 plots.

The State’s proposal was lying with the Centre for the last three years. “I do not know for what reason the Centre is sitting over the files,” he said.

He said the Government had finalised everything and the Centre had to just sign the files. If the Centre failed to clear the files before October 2 he would start allotting the plots to the tribal families already identified. “Let the Centre do whatever it wants to do about it.”

The State Congress leaders had been blaming the Modi Government for failure to allot the plots to the tribals despite the Centre’s clearance. Mr. Modi had said the “truth was the other way round.”

Patel’s charge

Mr. Patel, who took part in a function at a school in Surat, run by a trust of the dissident BJP members of the Assembly, alleged that there was no “people’s government in the State.”

Speaking against Mr. Modi openly, perhaps for the first time since dissidence showed up a couple of years ago, Mr. Patel said the dissident MLAs were suspended for alleged indiscipline, but the Chief Minister himself remained the most “indisciplined” person in the party.

Claiming that the common people were not getting justice in the Modi administration, Mr. Patel said: “Is not injustice to the people the most indisciplined act?”

A number of dissident and suspended BJP MLAs were present at the function.

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