The state Congress on Tuesday accused the Narendra Modi government of misusing Central funds and taking credit for schemes funded by the UPA government.

At a pre-Diwali media conference, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly

Shaktisinh Gohil quoted an RTI reply and alleged that the Chief Minister had “misused” Rs 5 crore from the state’s Women and Child Development Department. These funds were used to organise political functions in 20 districts of the state between March 2008 and February 2009, he alleged.

He said, at these functions, the CM had trained his guns on the UPA government and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi despite the fact that the Centre had provided funds for the economic development of women and children in the state. “But Modi misused the funds for political speeches,” Gohil said.

He demanded a probe by the Comptroller and Auditor General into this and recovery of this amount from the BJP.

He also accused Modi of seeking publicity by projecting the BRTS project as his own. He said 75 per cent of the BRTS project in Ahmedabad was funded under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

The Centre had provided Rs 26.95 crore for Phase I of BRTS from Vasna to RTO, while the state government spent only Rs 11.55 crore. For Phase II, the Centre was giving another sum of Rs 87.5 crore, he said.

Gohil further claimed that in 2008-09, the Centre had offered financial assistance of Rs 2,497.69 crore for development projects in four big cities — Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot — under JNNURM.

... contd.