Maharashtra CM calls Gujarat model marketing gimmick

Jubilant over snatching victory in the Sangli municipal corporation, a Nationalist Congress Party bastion, a confident Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday said the so-called Gujarat development model “was nothing but a corporate marketing gimmick, and bereft of truth.”

While inaugurating a two-day all-India Mahila Congress Committee meeting here, Chavan said: “They (BJP) are spending crores on marketing and advertising an ideology that has only corporate interests in mind. Look at Maharashtra. We don’t go around creating a hype or false image. After Haryana it is second in terms of per capita income. And it is the most industrialised state in the country. But PR agents in Gujarat work more than anybody else. And the so-called development is just a media hype. And media hype does not work all the time.”

Lashing out at the BJP, Chavan said: “People are against the divisive and hate politics practised by the BJP. Look at the issues they rake up. Ram temple, uniform civil code and repeal of Article 370. But what happens. The Congress was voted to power in the Sangli municipal corporation polls.”

Chavan reasoned that the recent victories of the Congress in civic body polls reflects the fact that the masses have appreciated UPA’s food security and direct cash transfer programmes, and the Mahila Congress cadres can play an important role in popularising these schemes.

Speaking about the need to reach out to women, the chief minister said, “In Maharashtra, women have ownership rights in family properties and it is time we highlighted the social changes brought about helping the masses in Congress-ruled states as compared to the performance and human development index in BJP-ruled states.”