Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday described the Gujarat model that propelled Narendra Modi to the pinnacle of India’s politics as fake, asking the Prime Minister to introspect why fakery has become the most dominant aspect of the state under his watch.
As the Prime Minister arrived in Ahmedabad to attend the Vibrant Gujarat summit on Wednesday, Kharge listed 10 examples of fraud in Gujarat asking Modi to think about the reasons for the “fakery epidemic” in the state where the governance culture was developed by him over the last two decades.
Kharge tweeted: “Minimum Governance, Maximum Fakery! Pradhan Mantri ji is on a visit to Gujarat. We expect him to take some time out and look at BJP’s fake Gujarat Model. Here are at least 10 instances of fakery which thrived in Gujarat. Did the BJP Govt turn a blind eye?”
The 10 examples cited by the leader of the Opposition are as follows:
1. Fake officer of PMO: A Bluffmaster — Kiran Bhai Patel — goes to Jammu and Kashmir from Gujarat, under Z-plus security, and betrays the Army in the name of PMO! Shockingly, he was also escorted by the government in highly sensitive areas like — near Aman Setu near PoK on LoC. This fraud that had been going on for 5 months.
2. Fake CMO Officer: Viraj Patel — the fraudster who claimed to be an officer of the Chief Minister’s Office of Gujarat and the Chairman of the much-publicized Gujarat International Finance Tech-City (GIFT City), escaped from the clutches of the police even after his arrest in May 2023, and finally, he was caught recently at the Assam-Mizoram border. That’s not the end, this serial thug also claimed to be the nephew of India’s Home Minister, Shri Amit Shah.
3. Fake Toll Plazas: A fake toll plaza in Morbi District, which was running for over a year, allegedly collected over Rs 75 crore from vehicles. Another fake toll plaza has been finally busted in Junagadh district which has collected lakhs from the commuters.
4. Fake Irrigation Department Offices: In BJP-ruled Gujarat’s Dahod district, 6 fake government offices related to the Irrigation Department were running for the last 5 years, which secured 270 government works worth Rs 18.59 crore.
5. Fake Government Offices: A swindler in Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur district set up a fake government office in Bodeli taluka of the tribal district, posed as a government official, forged signatures, government seals and official documents and obtained government grants worth over Rs 4 crore.
6. Fake Cough Syrup: Sadly, five people lost their lives after drinking fake Cough Syrup in Kheda district of Gujarat. The syrup was being manufactured in Ahmedabad and was being transferred to the villages through middlemen. One of the men arrested was the treasurer of BJP’s Nadiad Taluka unit in the same district.
7. Fake Visa Scam: At least 17 immigration consultancy firms were running a massive fake visa and passport racket in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Vadodara, not without the collusion of government officers.
8. Fake Football Betting App Scam: A Chinese national and his partners in Gujarat developed a fake football betting app that defrauded 1,200 people of crores.
9. Fake scientist who took false credit for Chandrayaan-3: The FAKERY EPIDEMIC has spread so much in the BJP rule that a fraudster named Mitul Trivedi from Gujarat has come forward to take credit for the national achievement Chandrayaan-3. He had created a fake appointment letter of ISRO to create a fake identity.
10. 98% fake notes of Rs 2000 currency found in Gujarat: Although the Rs 2000 notes introduced after demonetisation in 2016 were discontinued by the second demonetisation, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its 2022 report says that BJP-ruled Gujarat leads in seizure of fake Rs 2,000 notes in the country. Gujarat had the highest seizure of Rs 2,000 denomination of 11.28 lakh fake notes, which is 98% of the total national seizure of 11.48 lakh notes of the same denomination.
