Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi ended his fast on Monday evening by sipping lemon juice that leaders of various religions and sects served him amid the presence of top leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ending his three-day ‘Sadbhavna Mission’, the 62-year-old also announced that his “mission for harmony” would continue with him reaching out to every district of his western state. “I will now spend one day in each and every district of Gujarat -- and also will fast on that day. Because from my fast, I have seen the fruits and force of unity, brotherhood and peace,” said Modi. The schedule of his visit to different villages would be announced in due course of time.
The CM sought to reject the claims his critics made about playing politics in the name of fasting, saying there was no need to look at each of his actions as politically motivated. “This fast was motivated by rasthraneeti (nationalist approach) than raajneeti (politics),” he said.
Modi’s Jharkhand counterpart Arjun Munda compared the Gujarat CM’s mission with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s act of India’s unification. “Sardar Patel took up the task of unification of India’s princely states after Independence. Once again, we seen such an effort being launched from here,” he said. “India is a peace-loving country. That message is being spread to every corner of the world through Modi’s mission.”
Modi, on his part, attributed Gujarati’s development to its people’s participation. “We need to take people along for the development of the country. My government does not work for minority or for majority. My government works for six crore Gujaratis. I do not discriminate the majority against the minority.”
Modi's three-day fast came as in the wake of a recent Supreme Court judgement on the 2002 riots. The apex court, on September 12, refused to pass an order on Modi’s alleged inaction during the post-Godhra carnage.
Modi’s party colleague Sushma Swaraj took a dig at the ruling Congress at the Centre for tagging an “anti-minority image” to the Gujarat CM. “The court’s ruling is a victory of the truth. Modi runs the development programmes for all his citizens without differentiating them in any ways. He has been ruling with sadbhav for past 10 years,” said the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Swaraj also took note of the Centre’s “biased and unconstitutional” approach to Gujarat, especially with regard to its appointment of a Lokayukta for the state. “When the Centre has to appoint a Lokpal, it wants a brigade of government representatives present in the panel. But the appointment of the Lokayukta in Gujarat was made by keeping the chief minister of the state in dark. That is unconstitutional.”
Modi, in his speech, also commented on the Centre's “votebank-based” development model. “Since independence, most of the development work in our country was aimed at specific vote-banks,” he opined. “The economy and the Central policies were largely framed keeping in mind the vote-banks. But Gujarat came out of that that kind of a politics and chalked its way on the development-based politics.”
Those present at the venue on the last day included former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde, MP.
