Gujarat 's poor a happy lot: Narendra Modi

Chief minister Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed that the poor in the state were never as happy as are now, thanks to his government's 'revolutionary' ongoing Garib Kalyan Mela programme.

"This (Mela) was originally planned to be a part of the celebrations of the golden jubilee of the state and was limited to 50 melas.

But seeing it succeed beyond our imagination in containing poverty and changing the life of the common man, we decided to continue it and make it a taluka level mela and raised the figure to 300 more melas," 'Modi said, looking quite confident while distributing financial assistance of Rs17 cr to around 7000 beneficiaries of Anjar taluka in Kutch.

He, however, said that the success was not in terms of monetary benefit accruing to the poor, but the fact that 70 to 80 lakh poor people attend the melas.

Coming down heavily on his critics who termed the money to be theirs, Modi said the money neither came from his pocket nor belonged to the government.

It was only people's money being returned to the people.