GANDHINAGAR : The Gujarat Congress has asked Chief Minister Narendra Modi not to politicise the Narmada dam affair but concentrate on the construction of the main canal network which will benefit the people.

Construction work

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Arjun Modhvadia, ridiculed Mr. Modi "celebrating" the completion of the construction of the main concrete dam wall when it reached the height of 121.92 metres last week as sanctioned by the Supreme Court.

Pointing out that of the total only about 10 per cent of the construction work had been carried out during the Modi regime, Mr. Modhvadia said the Chief Minister was trying to create an impression among the people that the dam was his contribution to Gujarat.

Underlining the Congress' contributions to the dam project, Mr. Modhvadia reminded Mr. Modi that the first 80 metres of the construction of the wall was completed when Congress governments were in power in the State. It was during Rajiv Gandhi's prime ministership that environmental clearance for the dam was given and it was due to the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Supreme Court gave the final clearance for increasing the height to 121.92 metres.

Despite making tall claims, Mr. Modi failed to take the benefits to the people because the Government did not pay due attention to the construction of the main canal network.

He claimed that of the 85,000-km-long main canal network, the construction had been completed only for about 15,000 km.

It would take about 10 more years for the work to be completed.

Mr. Modhvadia said that during the Congress regimes water was earmarked for the arid north Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra regions, but Mr. Modi diverted the excess Narmada waters to various rivers for festivities and thus for personal propaganda.

Not a drop for Kutch

Not a drop of water was allocated to the Kutch and Saurashtra regions while his Rs.6,500-crore `Sujalam sufalam' scheme to divert the Narmada waters flopped due to large-scale corruption.

Even the Congress Government's Rs.7,470-crore project to supply Narmada waters through pipelines to villages was not properly implemented and so far only about 2,000 villages had been covered under the scheme, he said.

Launching a scathing attack on the BJP president Rajnath Singh, Mr. Modhvadia said that while the Modi Government prevented the release of the film Fanaa in just because its hero, Aamir Khan, sided with the anti-Narmada dam leader, Medha Patkar, the Chief Minister did nothing when Mr. Rajnath Singh sat in dharna with Ms. Patkar on the Singur land issue in West Bengal.

National project

Mr. Modi also did nothing when, despite election promises, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government failed to declare the Narmada dam a national project, he pointed out.

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