Vibrant Gujarat Summit a platform for BJP’s corruption: Congress

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) The Congress on Wednesday termed the Vibrant Gujarat Summit "a platform for BJP's corruption"

"Vibrant Gujarat is nothing but a platform for BJP's corruption and companies have used Vibrant Gujarat as a platform to inflate their share value and attract financial institutions for more funding," Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil told media persons.

"Also, there have been cases of land grabbing through such project announcements," he added.

The 8th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, a brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when Gujarat Chief Minister is being held in Gandhinagar January 10 to 13 with the central focus on "Sustainable Economic and Social Development".

"The nation is stuck in an economic crisis and has become more acute since the Prime Minister announced demonetisation. On one hand, the nation is still struggling to come to terms in the aftermath of demonitisation and on the other hand BJP government in Gujarat is busy celebrating so called festivals like Vibrant Gujarat summit, spending not lakhs but crores, collected from people," said Gohil.

"Modi ji who initiated this summit as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2003, launched the 2015 edition as the Prime Minister of India. This is for the second time that he is inaugurating Vibrant Gujarat as Prime Minister. This clearly shows that despite moving to the centre as the PM he continues to call the shots in Gujarat and this summit by all means is Modi's affair," he added.

Gohil also said Gujarat government's claim of investment through Vibrant Summit is Rs.84.55 lakh crore agreements signed from 2003 to 2015, but the "real" and "authentic" data of Industries Commissioner Gujarat says industrial approvals in the state from 1983 to 2016 is only of 9.5 lakh crore.

"State's BJP government makes high claims on the economic growth of the state through investment made in the Vibrant Summit MOUs but as per the official records published in the budget the state has witnessed lowest Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) rate in the last ten years according to the statement under Financial Responsibility Act(FRA) published with the last budget."