Modi becomes MoU ka Saudagar

Ahmedabad. The Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit 2009, the mega event organized by Narendra Modi government has met with more resounding a success than originally anticipated. Not only has the Gujarat government surpassed the target it had set for itself; the event managers have caught the notice of top aides of the new US President Barack Obama.

Gujarat is currently hosting delegates from 37 countries for the fourth such summit, designed to catalyze investments in the state. Formal signing of MoUs with prospective investors in sectors like automobiles, IT, power, port, infrastructure, oil and gas sectors has been the highlight of such meets. A target of $140 billion had been fixed for VGGIS 2009. The tally grazed the $150 billion mark on the first day itself with captains of industry from India and abroad committing investments in several SEZs.

Modi will, in effect, be putting Rs 1.5 lakh in the pocket of each one of the 5 crore Gujaratis, whom he is concerned about. Thus even the Muslims among the population will become lakhpatis as a result of this feat. The achievement contributed to the festive mood of kite flying celebrated with fervor in the state during Uttarayan, for which tonnes of yarn is consumed.

A jubilant chief secretary D Rajagopalan declared that the tally was even higher than the sum of all commitments MoUed by Gujarat in the last eight years. He could not give any figures of actual implementation of committed projects and said that it did not come under his purview as chief secretary.

One notable absence in the meet was of B Ramalinga Raju, a close friend of Modi. He was the main attraction at the IT summit in the State in 2006. Satyam had signed an MoU to set up SEZs investing close to $1 billion. It paid an advance of Rs 12 crore to get 26 acres of land allotted and presumably generated at least half of the promised 15,000 jobs.

Raju’s place is taken by Paresh Rawal, the Gol Maal star who is signing an MoU for a Rs 1500 crore Film City project. It will be in partnership with Bollywood scriptwriter Mitun Bhutia and the project will come up in south Gujarat, near Mumbai. They will get 200-250 acre land. Rawal told Faking News that the entire funds will come from another version of Gol Mall to be completed by the next Vibrant Gujarat summit. Shatru Gun Sinha too will sign an MoU for establishing a Rs 1000 crore Film City at Mandvi in Kutch. The Bollywood actor who drew a blank in Bihar in this mission will be given 300 acre land.

The ironies have given a handle to former BJP stalwart and Modi’s predecessor as CM, Shankarsinh Vaghela, to call the summit as a “Satyanaryan Katha.” Currently Union textile minister after accepted the leadership of ‘madam’ and defecting to Congress, he demanded, “The Gujarat government should release a black paper clarifying the status of implementation of MoUs.”

Vaghela trashed talk of creation of 2.5 million jobs during Modi’s tenure, including 800,000 from the “present tamasha”. In fact, Industries commissioner Sujit Gulati has confirmed that over 30 per cent of the 200,000 registered SMEs in Gujarat have closed down and one million people are unemployed in the state.

Surprisingly, ‘Travails of India’, the mass circulation newspaper described VGGIS 2009 as “simply staggering, given the depressed environment worldwide.” It hailed Modi as “MoU ka Saudagar” who had put “the world at Gujarat’s feet.”

The media biggie was waging a no-holds-barred war against Modi till recently, It had played a big role in projecting Modi as ‘Maut ka Saudagar’, the title given to him by Vaghela. But, this time around, the newspaper has chosen to ignore the criticism by Congress netas.

Faking News learns that K Kailasnathan, the principal secretary to the chief minister, received a call from White House, congratulating his boss. The aides were keen to know the secret behind the ‘feat’. They said they already had the expertise to balloon figures for painting a rosy picture of economy. But, they sought Gujarat’s expertise in bringing bellicose media Moguls around when making incredibly tall claims.

It may be noted that Modi’s visa had been revoked by the US and he has been debarred from entering EU countries because of negative propaganda. Observers say that a high decibel positive propaganda is on the way and that Obama will be compelled to tender an apology on behalf of Bush.

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