Chief Minister Narendra Modi announced free state transport bus travel to girl students studying in secondary, higher secondary and professional courses across the state in an apparent bid to appease young girl voters and parents ahead of the assembly elections in the state.
Making an announcement at a function organised to award girl students from Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar here, Modi said that the free passes were a Raksha Bandhan gift to the girls. 
This scheme can be availed by girls studying in high schools and college and will be implemented from
September 1.
The Gujarat government claimed that benefits can be availed by an estimated 2.5 lakh girl students across the state.
The awards were given away as part of the Kanya (girl child welfare) Kelavani scheme, a pet project of the chief minister, where funds are generated by auctioning off gifts received by Modi and his predecessors and the money spent on girl child education.
The state government claimed that while 13 former chief ministers had deposited 560 gifts, Chief Minister Narendra Modi alone has deposited 4,000 gifts.
Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly Arjun Modhwadia lambasted the announcement as a election sop saying that Modi had made a mockery of free education to girls in the state by permitting the self-finance culture to flourish where even girls students have to shell out a heavy fee for getting good education.
“Modi introduced self-finance PTC, engineering, BEd, science and other professional courses where good education is at a premium,” Modhwadia alleged.
He claimed that the schemes to give free uniforms to school SC, ST and OBC students where the state government spent Rs 150 crore earlier have been restricted to only BPL students and only Rs 15 crore are being spent by the state government.
Modhwadia said that very few girl students travel by buses and asked the state government to restore free education for girls instead of doling out election largesse that does not serve any purpose.