For the past six years, Narendra Modi, as Prime Minister, has been busy in all-round development of India. But very few people know that he has already worked on a mini model of India’s overall development. That too, as an MLA. Maninagar, a constituency in Ahmedabad which he represented for more than 11 long years as an MLA, is home to Indians from almost all parts of the country. In this constituency, one can find things that are required for every occasion of day-to-day life, both for the living as well as the dead. Such development of the area became possible under the guidance of Modi. And it has changed the lives of the residents of Maninagar.
When a young man who lived in the ancient city of Vadnagar in Gujarat, broke all emotional bonds and left his family in 1969-70, made Ahmedabad his permanent workplace, and took a vow to serve society through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), little did he know that some day he will be fighting election from this area as chief minister. It was the same area from where he started his journey as a pracharak under Sangh. Neither Narendra Modi nor his mentor Lakshmanrao Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, under whose guidance Modi had toured different parts of Gujarat in 1971, would have had any inkling about the future.
A year after Vakil Saheb died, Narendra Modi joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as per the wishes of the Sangh, to strengthen the political organisation which was established in 1980. In the general election in 1984, the party could manage only two seats of which one was from Mehsana, Gujarat, which also included Modi’s paternal city Vadnagar.
In 1986, just a few months after he joined the BJP, Modi helped the party gain power in Ahmedabad municipality. For Narendra Modi, this proved to be a political launching pad and he never looked back after that. He became general secretary (mahamantri) of the BJP in 1988 and helped the party form the government in Gujarat in 1995. After some time, Shankersinh Vaghela led a rebellion in the party which displeased Modi and he headed for Delhi. After six years, he returned to Gujarat only when he was made chief minister of the state and was entrusted the task to strengthen the party.
On October 7, 2001, Modi took over as chief minister of Gujarat and oversaw the rebuilding of the Kutch region which was ravaged by a massive earthquake. Laxity in carrying out relief works had brought much criticism for former CM Keshubhai Patel who had to leave the post. Modi took note of this and revitalised the state machinery that lay dormant. He set his priorities and his goals. During this time, Modi had to honour the constitutional norm to get elected to the state assembly to remain on the post of chief minister.
A tall leader of the BJP, Vajubhai Vala, vacated his Rajkot seat so Narendra Modi could contest from there. Modi got elected in February 2002, and just three days after the result was declared, the Godhra train carnage took place on February 27, 2002. The next day riots broke out in several parts of Gujarat. Modi’s priority was to control the violence. He was criticised for his failure. He dissolved the assembly and sought fresh mandate. He took out a ‘Gujarat Gaurav Yatra’, and in the election that took place in December 2002 he won a massive mandate. He again became the chief minister of Gujarat, keeping his party in power.
But in the December 2002 election, Modi contested from the Maninagar seat of Ahmedabad instead of Rajkot. The reason was that he wanted to solve the problems of his own assembly constituency because he did not wish to see his people suffer and wanted to be with them in their hour of need. As a CM, it was not possible for Modi to visit Rajkot frequently, neither was it possible for the people of Rajkot to travel 200 km to meet him.
Just before the polls, when Modi was thinking all these things, he started his ‘Gujarat Gaurav Yatra’ from Fagvel, a religious place in Kheda district. The same evening, he found a solution to this vexed issue. Before Modi, Dattaji Chirandas, the organisational secretary of the party, had sought the opinion of Kamlesh Patel, who had represented Maninagar three times. He said that if Modi wants to fight elections from Maninagar, his seat, then he would be happy. That is how Modi came to Maninagar.
It was also a coincidence that in 1986 when Modi joined the BJP, Kamlesh Patel had filled the party membership receipt for Modi and had secured ₹2 as fee from him. And the same Kamlesh Patel had vacated his seat in favour of Modi after 16 years, in 2002. Both Modi and Patel have connections with Vadnagar. Modi was born in Vadnagar while Patel had shifted to Ahmedabad with his parents from Vadnagar.
When Modi had come to Maninagar as a pracharak in 1971, at the time the Sangh’s office was his postal address and remained so for the next 30 years. As chief minister in December 2002, Modi cast his vote at Best High School. After getting elected as CM, Modi changed his address and started casting his vote from Ranip area of Ahmedabad where his brother lived and where his documents were kept safe.
After becoming MLA from Maninagar, Modi started working on his plan. He had already earned fame as a fine planner and strategist. In such a situation the first thing that occupied his mind was how to develop the Maninagar area to serve his people effectively. Modi knew that he had the responsibility to develop the whole of Gujarat but he had to ensure the development of Maninagar as well while doing everything else.
With a master’s degree in political science, Modi knew that many political stars had been elected as MLA and MP by the people but could not return their love in the form of development which caused them to fade into oblivion. Modi understood this dual responsibility – he had to prove his worth and had to develop the area that could benefit the poor and the rich, backward and forward alike.
When Modi took over the reins as CM of Gujrat, development in Ahmedabad was bumpy and even the Sabarmati river had dried up. The western flank of the river had all the modern amenities but the eastern side had nothing and was equally backward, but it had a rich past from the days of Karnavati to just before the closing of textile mills. The western flank was synonymous with development and the eastern one with backwardness. Modi’s own constituency Maninagar also fell on the eastern flank and most of its five wards had no facilities to speak of. The area was crime-prone, roads were dotted with potholes during rains and there were floods. There were no avenues for employment as most of the textile mills had closed down.
Modi knew all this as during his days as a pracharak he had lived in the Sangh Bhavan which was in Maninagar. When he helped the party win the Ahmedabad municipal elections, he alerted the corporators about the development work needed. But between the time he left Gujarat in 1995 and then came back again 2001, the scene had changed. The municipal corporation that he had helped his party take control of in 1987, had again gone back to the Congress.
In such a situation, Modi had to prepare the road map for the development of Maninagar. In 2003, he opened his MLA office in the area. To keep the office open and allow people to visit at any time, he appointed a full-time office secretary. Jayantibhai Khatri, who was from north Gujarat, was chosen for this task. He was a man who spoke his mind but was also willing to listen to people’s grievances and solving their problems with due diligence.
After this, Modi also wanted someone who could keep him abreast of the affairs in Gandhinagar, keep an eye on the development works being done in his constituency, and also observe if people’s problems were being solved or not. He chose an officer named Dilip Thaker, who was working in the CM’s office since 1998, for this task. This officer of secretarial services was entrusted this special task by Modi and was told in no uncertain terms that if anyone came to the Maninagar MLA office for any work, or if there was any issue with development of the area, a decision would have to be made by taking everyone into confidence so that it was an inclusive process and there was no controversy.
Maninagar, at the time, had five wards and every ward had three corporators. Modi had instructed that all the problems should be classified ward wise, they had to be discussed with corporators and the BJP in-charge of the constituency. And only after that an issue would have to be solved on the basis of priority. If it was the matter of spending the ₹50 lakh annual grant of the MLA fund, efforts should be made that all the wards get equal amounts for expenditure.
Modi took deep interest in the development of his constituency. As CM and a tall leader of the BJP in Gujarat, despite his busy schedule, he always found time for Maninagar and spent half a day there every fortnight. He would listen to people’s problems with all his officers that day and review old and new projects. He would ask officers when they were going to inaugurate a new project and asked them to fix dates for this. From May 2006 to July 2011, the-then municipal commissioner IP Gautam, now a retired IAS officer, reminisces that Modi had suggestions for each and every scheme and would also recommend improvements.
When Modi became MLA of Maninagar, there was no dearth of problems in the area. It had a tottering health system, no good schools and colleges, textile mills had closed down and there were not many avenues for employment left, the transport system was broken, the sides of historical Kankariya lake were dirty. Flooding was very common in the rainy season because, compared to the Naroda area of the city, Maninagar was situated almost five metres lower. Before the delimitation exercise in 2009, the Amraiwadi area was still part of the Maninagar constituency. The neighbourhood was crime-prone and policing was weak. Heavy traffic jams were very common and people had to spend hours at the cross-roads. Real estate rates were not even one-fourth of what they were in the western part.
Maninagar resembled a mini India. There were people from all parts of the country. It was also home to people of all religions and the area had temples, mosques, gurdwaras and churches. Officers from southern India working in the secretariat had ensured that Maninagar had many food joints that sold idli-dosa. There were rich people but it had its share of poverty as well, and that too in large numbers. Unemployment was rampant and the closing of textile mills had added to the woes. This rained miseries on the families. It is to be noted that during the time of Jana Sangh, the textile mill workers had taken up the membership of the party in large numbers. When Modi started the development of Maninagar, the land belonging to the closed textile mills was put to use. These were mills that were closed but had become dens of criminals and saw unrestricted movement of animals. Special Economic Zones were built on this land. This is the area which now produces textiles that are exported and provides employment to thousands of youth.
Modi’s blueprint of development has four important dimensions. The poor have to be at the centre of the development plan, the development schemes had to provide long-term benefits and not just short-term ones, the development plans would have to continue for long periods without any hitch, and transparency and honesty were essential while implementing schemes. A key aspect was that the schemes should be required at every stage of life. Soon after becoming a legislator, Modi was drawn towards the Rukmani Ben Maternity Home which was near the MLA office. This small hospital run by the municipality was in very bad shape. Modi decided to turn it around. He got this small hospital changed into a beautiful one and today it has all the facilities required including homeopathy and ayurveda. It has a state-of-the-art eye surgery centre.
The LG Hospital in this area was also revamped and a new medical college was opened here. Later, a dental college was added to it. Now, nobody had to go to the civil hospital from this area. To run the medical colleges attached with the hospitals, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation started a self-financing scheme and for this a society was created which has become a template for the whole country today.
Apart from health, Modi also revamped the education system. The municipal schools were made modern and they now competed with any top private school. The medium of learning was Gujarati along with English and enough recreational facilities were created for children. For higher education, the land of a closed textile mill was used and the KeKa Shastri Shiksha Sankul was developed in which arts, science, commerce and professional courses like BBA, LLB, MCA were also made available. Students could learn foreign languages, and a course of temple management was also started. Keshavram Kashiram Shastri, popularly known as KeKa Shastri, was a great scholar of Gujarat who had studied Indian culture in his century-long life, written many books and was one of the founders of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).
But Modi was still not satisfied. He set up a world-class infrastructure development institute in Maninagar and the task to run it was entrusted to IIT Gandhinagar. This is the Institute of Infrastructure Technology, Research and Management which is famous as IITRAM the world over and it has the most modern labs with the best educational standards. Modi had invited Lal Krishna Advani to inaugurate it and Advani presented Modi as the next Prime Minister of the country and praised him profusely. The BJP had endorsed Modi as its prime ministerial candidate just a month back.
Modi is also credited with opening big gardens, sports complexes, multi-level automated parking lots, and double-decker flyovers. He got the TransStadia Indoor Stadium constructed in collaboration with private firms on the build-operate-transfer model. Earlier, this place was occupied by Abad Dairy. Today all kinds of international sporting events, from football to kabaddi, are held here.
The historic Kankaria Lake was given new life and it was a very important part of Modi’s Maninagar development plan. This lake was built during the Sultanate period but before it was revamped, it had become synonymous with filth. There were heaps of filth all around this lake. Modi got the municipal corporation to rebuild and redevelop this area. The famous architect Vimal Patel was roped in, machines were brought in to increase the oxygen level in the lake and everything was done to beautify the water body, which included fitting its banks with beautiful stones. At one end of it stands a butterfly park, a modern skating rink, and other amenities.
Kankaria has a modern ‘Kids City’ in which children are told how ice cream is made and how the fire brigade works. The information is participatory and kids actively take part in the process. It became the only such centre for children where they could experience interviewing Narendra Modi. On the banks of the Kankaria, there is a mini train system, called Atal Express, in two pairs. These were imported from London. Now Kankaria Lake is a changed place. Every visitor to Ahmedabad now wishes to visit it and it is certainly popular among locals.
Kankaria lake was developed with a budget of around ₹30 crore and now the Kankaria Carnival is held in collaboration with the municipal corporation every year since 2008 between December 25 and 31 and it has become a public fair. To allow the people of Maninagar to exhibit their cultural skills, Asit Vora, the-then mayor, was entrusted with this task. Vora was himself a music exponent. From the local Garba to Punjab’s Giddha and south Indian folk dances were performed here. This became a meeting place of different cultures and for Modi it was like a ‘Connect India Campaign’. On the day the programme ends, a human chain is formed and people of Maninagar participate in this.
Kankaria became a talking point for all those who came from other states and they mentioned it to others when they went back to their homes. So Modi’s development model of Gujarat travelled the whole country.
Modi adopted many other ways to connect with the people of his constituency. To instil a sense of security in the hearts of people from all religions and communities, police pickets have been created in all the sensitive areas and even new police stations were opened. When Modi became MLA of Maninagar for the first time, it had only two police stations – one in Maninagar and the other in Amraiwadi. Modi added one each in Ramol and in Isanpur. These police stations are modern and have all the facilities including those for police personnel so that they do not face any inconvenience while doing duty for long hours.
He also got State Reserve Police barracks created in sensitive areas where not even police dared to go. These areas were brought under the rule of law. Criminals fled or were sent behind bars. Criminal activities ceased and if any such incidents at all happened, Modi would directly call the officers which led to more vigilance. After all, Modi was not only the MLA of the area, he was also the home minister of the state. During Modi’s reign, the sector-2 police office of Ahmedabad Police in Maninagar was established.
The development works that Modi undertook led to a rise in the real estate rates and the jump in some places was ten times. Modi cared for the poor; he started the Deendayal Poor Housing Scheme and got more than 20,000 houses constructed. These houses were not as per the 17 square metre yardstick of HUDCO but were built on 27 square metres as per the requirements of the poor, in corporate size. One year later, the central government adopted this model in 2008 and decided that the buildings constructed for the poor should be of corporate size, in 25 square metres.
The problems of roads, street lights, water and other challenges were addressed too. Funds for development came from the municipality as well as from MLA fund as per the requirement of the scheme. In some selected areas, government funds, and funds from private players were also used. The end result was that the whole area was revamped and the people of Maninagar have not forgotten this even today
Apart from work, as a representative of the people, he established direct contact with the people. Modi used to participate in kite flying every year even in cramped houses. He used to visit pandals during the Ganesh festival. During Navratri, he would visit all the Garba centres in each ward. He would participate in Dussehra and Durga Puja of the Bengali community and was always there when anyone needed him in a moment of grief or joy.
When there were serial blasts on July 26, 2008, in Ahmedabad, he visited the area in his constituency despite police clearly telling him not to do so. He visited hospitals where the injured were after terrorists belonging to the Indian Mujahideen group set off bombs in the city. The explosives went off with timers and the police were worried about more blasts, but Modi did not let this stop him. He assured the people all help including apprehending the culprits.
Modi also visited Maninagar on more than 20 occasions to encourage his party colleagues and held tiffin meetings. In these meetings, every person would bring food from his home and they would sit together, eat and discuss the issue, share information and find solutions to people’s problems. Modi too used to carry his tiffin. After Modi, Maninagar MLA Suresh Patel, who was BJP president of the area when Modi was MLA, still remembers those days and how Modi had invited chief functionaries of the party at the ministerial housing complex in Gandhinagar and had shared his tiffin with them.
A resident of Maninagar and ex-mayor of Ahmedabad, Asit Vora recollects how serious Modi was to end each and every problem of his constituency. So much so that he even got a modern CNG-based crematorium built in Maninagar so that the environment is protected. The message was clear: he took care of all issues right from birth to death. Education, health, entertainment, employment, art, security and good governance, he offered the best to his people. As an MLA, Modi has set such an example that is being talked about fondly all over the country. This is a challenge for those leaders who become MLAs, but fail to develop their areas properly.
Modi’s Maninagar Model can be useful for the whole country. This model is a way to make life better by obliterating all the divides. The inhabitants of Maninagar are witness to this life-changing model and this also includes those who now live in Amraiwadi area after the delimitation exercise in 2012.
This is also a challenge for leaders like Suresh Patel who is still representing Modi’s constituency. This also is a matter of great achievement for IP Gautam who despite retiring from the IAS, is a member of the Lokpal; for Dilip Thaker who is presently Chief Information Commissioner of Gujarat; and Vimal Patel who after overseeing the development plan of Kankaria, is now working on the Central Vista project in Lutyens’ Delhi. They all have been witness to the redemption of Maninagar. Even the Metro tracks and BRTS corridor are part of this revamp as are Guruji Bridge, Deendayal Upadhyay BJP office, Shyama Prasad Mukherji Municipal Corporation office, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat Bridge and Kushabhau Thakre Auditorium. They are living proofs of the development works done by Modi which is the base of the Gujarat Model and a mini model of the complete development of India. And the lessons from this are being replicated in the whole country by Modi as Prime Minister.
Maninagar has bridged the gap of east and west in Ahmedabad, and now as PM of the country, Modi’s priority is to bridge the gap of east and west of India. He wishes to bring all the facilities to villages that are available in cities and thus not allow any disparity to exist between rich and poor. For this, he has taken positive steps during these six years as Prime Minister and the efforts are still on. The journey that he began as a pracharak of the Sangh five decades ago from Maninagar are proving useful in the politics of the country for sheer achievements. It is obvious the people of this country want him to replicate Maninagar in the whole of the country. And even Modi has the same desire.
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