Shivraj Singh Chouhan 'humble' like Vajpayee, says Advani

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is "humble" like Atal Behari Vajpayee and BJP wants both Chouhan and Narendra Modi "play a major role" in securing India an important place in the world, senior party leader L K Advani today.

"Vajpayee implemented several developmental schemes including road network, but he always remained very humble and far away from arrogance.

"Similarly, Chouhan has also formulated a large number of development and welfare schemes like Ladli Laxmi scheme and Mukya Mantri Teerth Darshan Yojna, and implemented them successfully. Despite that I found Chouhan very humble, like Vajpayee," Advani told BJP's booth-level coordinators here.

He further said the party wants both Chouhan and his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi "to play a major role in securing India an important place in the world."

While Modi transformed a healthy state into an excellent one, Chouhan successfully turned around a BIMARU state into a developed state, Advani said.

Both BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are now reckoned as models of development even outside India, Advani claimed.

He noted that among the tenures of all the Prime Ministers that the country had so far, Vajpayee's term was full of positives.

Referring to Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary celebrations, Advani said he had suggested to the President in Mumbai yesterday that a programme should be organised in Chicago where the iconic spiritual leader had visited 120 years ago for a conference on religions.

He urged the booth-level coordinators to strive for the party's victory for the third time in a row in the coming Assembly polls.

Advani is here to launch the Madhya Pradesh government's ambitious food security scheme whereby wheat and iodised salt will be sold at Rs one per kg and rice at Rs two per kg.