Gujarat Cong slams Modi for wasting money on anti-Centre advt

Gujarat Congress on Thursday attacked the state government over its advertisements criticising the Center's cotton policy.

"Narendra Modi government should stop wasting crores of rupees of public money and spreading gross lies and start telling the truth that it has not spent a single rupee for the benefit of the state's cotton farmers," Shankarsinh Vaghela, chairman of Congress' State Campaign Committee, said at a press conference here.

Full-page advertisements in the local newspapers today question the rationale behind the recent ban on cotton export by the Centre when cotton supply was in excess of the domestic demand. Advertisements blame the Centre for the losses suffered by the cotton growers of Gujarat.

Countering this, Vaghela said, "If cotton growers were badly hurt by the export ban, why there are no such reports from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and other states?"

The Congress leader also referred to various central packages, schemes such as Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, Technology Mission on Cotton and the high Minimum Support Price offered to cotton farmers.

"One should ask the Modi government how much money it has spent for cotton farmers and ginning, processing and spinning units in the past 12 years.

"Most of the apparel parks in the state are in a ruined state, there are bogus entries in apparel training centres just to claim funds, MOUs signed (with private players) have had zero performance," he alleged.

Former Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel said, "Why, in the past 12 years, state government did not come out with the policy like that of Maharashtra government which has given package of Rs 2,000 crore to local farmers?"