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Launching poll campaign, Modi seeks to appropriate Sardar Patel's legacy

Chief Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to make an attempt to appropriate Sardar Patel's legacy and also launch a broadside against the Congress for ignoring his contribution to the nation.

"What can be more unfortunate than Sardar Patel getting the Bharat Ratna 40 years after his death and the Congress conferring the prestigious award on both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi?" Modi said.

"It was the BJP which played a role in honouring Sardar Patel," he said.

In his diatribe against the Congress, Modi did not spare even Jawaharlal Nehru accusing him of 'sabotaging' Sardar Patel's prospects of taking over as the country's first prime minister even though '14 out of the 16 states supported Patel's candidature'.

Amidst repeated applause from a large crowd, Modi accused Congressmen of ignoring Sardar Patel, rediscovering him only after seeing the BJP honour the 'Iron Man of India'.

In a symbolic gesture, Modi touched the feet and sought the blessings of Patel's grand daughter-in-law Shantaben Patel.

Referring to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Modi said the Congress had no moral right to criticise the BJP for the violence in Gujarat and also harped on party chief Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins.

"Gujarat should show the political direction to the rest of the country," he asserted.

Turning his attention to the Election Commission, Modi sarcastically thanked Chief Election Commissioner M Lyngdoh for his choice of date for conducting the assembly poll and attributed the same to 'divine will'. It enabled him to turn the Gaurav Yatra into a poll campaign, Modi said.

He also alleged that Pakistan was attempting to foist a pliant government in Gujarat.

After the BJP 'returns to power', all out efforts would be made to stamp out terrorism 'with the same intensity as Patel did to ensure annexation in post-independence period', he said.

The chief minister promised the audience 'modernisation without westernisation', setting up of a global education employment board to enable Gujarati students admission in the best educational institutions in the world.

He also announced an increase in the number of seats in technical institutes in the state to 25,000 in the next two years.

In a veiled message to his rivals within the party, including former chief minister Keshubhai Patel, who were conspicuous by their absence, Modi recalled that despite enjoying popular support, Sardar Patel had agreed to Mahatma Gandhi's choice of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the country's first prime minister.

Patel had organised a parallel function at Lodhika in Saurashtra where he was weighed in blood. Modi brushed off Keshubhai Patel's separate programme as a mere 'coincidence'.

The BJP's central leadership sought to downplay Keshubhai Patel's absence saying that as chairman of the party's campaign committee, all programmes were being organised under his directions.

"But the elections will be fought under the leadership of Chief Minister Narendra Modi," BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters in Delhi.

Haren Pandya, who had resigned from the Modi ministry following differences with the chief minister, and Union Minister Kanshiram Rana were also missing from Modi's function.

Prominent among those present was BJP general secretary in charge of Gujarat Arun Jaitley who said that had Sardar Patel been alive, he would have opposed those favouring persons of foreign origin for the posts of President, Vice-President, prime minister and army chief.

Gujarat Elections 2002: The complete coverage

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