Mehta,Vaghela unite for anti-Modi front

While the two former BJP leaders called the platform as a “non-political forum to restore democracy in the state which has been gagged during eight years of Modi’s misrule”,their effort behind launching of the forum is believed to be aimed at their own political rehabilitation.

Addressing a joint press conference on Thursday,the two leaders said a kind of demoralisation had set in every section of the society,including politicians,during Modi’s rule.

Ever since Modi became the CM in the state in 2001,they said,he has stifled every voice with no one mustering courage to speak up against the misrule.

“Even the Congress has been keeping quiet and is not raising voice against the Modi government’s misrule indicating the condition of democratic freedom in the state which gave birth to leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel,” said Mehta.

Vaghela said the way government locked the striking resident doctors’ hostels and even kitchens and canteens speaks of its highhandedness.

He said around two lakh government employees work at a paltry monthly salary of Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500 in education,health and police departments. Moreover,they are not paid full salaries while the state government keeps frittering away public money on Vibrant Gujarat celebrations and on advertisements for cheap publicity of Modi,said Vaghela.

They said they have decided to float a new forum to “take people out of the choked atmosphere and to take up their problems by launching a movement against the tyrannical state government’’. They said that they would not hesitate from launching an agitation on public issues. When asked why he did not choose to raise these issues from the Congress platform,Vaghela,a former Union Textile Minister and a senior Congress leader,said,“I have taken permission from my party.”

Later,state Congress General Secretary Girish Patel told Newsline that the party had allowed Vaghela for carrying out the activities under the umbrella of PNSM.

When Vaghela and Mehta were asked if they will accept support from any political outfit,they said they would keep their forum apolitical but were ready to accept support from any political party if it is willing to help them in their mission.

Mehta said the reason behind keeping the forum apolitical was to organise government employees who were feeling aggrieved with the state policies,particularly with regard to their salaries.

The leaders said the state government employees were so scared of ruling political dispensation that they would not like to be seen with any political group while fighting for their demands.