BJP pins hope on Bhuj investment boom

GUJARAT DECIDES

Bhuj appears to be suffering an embarrassment of investment, which the ruling BJP hopes will see it through the coming Assembly polls.

So much so that Ramesh Bhai Patel, a matriculate villager in Daheti says with barely-concealed cynicism that "50 per cent of this investment will flee once the government's tax holiday is over."

The state government had given a tax holiday to industries investing in Kutchh after the earthquake in 2001. It also ensures speedy clearance of MoUs for setting up industries in the area.

All along the highway and in towns and villages of Kuchh, where there was desolation once, there are factories, warehouses, hotels and truck companies "" a direct result of economic activity at Kandla and Mundhra ports.

Two-star Prince Hotel, once the pride of Bhuj, now has competition from others who offer better facilities to businessmen travelling to Bhuj and Gandhidham.

The BJP, which felt that the 2001 quake was reason it lost in 2002 in the area, bases its optimism this time on this economic activity.

"Four top business houses "" Reliance, Essar, Adani and Tatas "" have jointly invested up to $34 billion along the Gulf of Kutchh," says Neemaben Shastri, former MLA from the Congress who has crossed over to the BJP.

She insists the investment, coupled with the Narmada water being piped to some villages, will see the party through.

This massive influx of investment has rattled the Congress, which weakly says the Narmada water has not reached many villages. Indeed, villages like Dhaneti, Nayagaon, Hirapur and Khagarpur depend on borewell water.

According to Roti Bhai Patel, the scribe at the panchayat office at Nayagaon, the village has to bore as deep as 500 feet for water, but this is treated as par for the course.

What could stop Modi is the demographic make-up of Kutchh, which has a significant number of tribals and where Muslims comprise 32 per cent of the populace.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, at her maiden rally in Bhuj, made it a point to blame the Modi government for revoking the scheduled tribe status to Kolis and Pardis and for the first time in this election talked of secularism at some length.

Also, two sitting BJP MLAs, Narendra Jadeja and Gopal Bhai Dhua, have defected to the Congress and are fighting from Abdasa and Mundhra, respectively. Those who visited Bhuj after the 2001 earthquake can barely recognise it now.

In business circles, the Gulf of Kutchh is being referred to as the gulf of gold. How far this will turn out be electoral gold for the BJP remains to be seen.