Gujarat's loan burden has risen to Rs 1.72 lakh crore: Digvijay Singh

SHAJAPUR: Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh today slammed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for making "tall claims" about development, and claimed that despite all talks of progress every citizen of Gujarat is burdened with a debt of Rs 26,000.

"When Modi became Gujarat Chief Minister for the first time, the state had a loan burden of Rs 46,000 crore, but today it has risen to Rs 1.72 lakh crore, which means each and every individual in the state is indebted by a loan burden of Rs 26,000," he told reporters last night, enroute to Indore.

Singh said that this fact exposed all of Modi's claims about development of Gujarat.

He said that in "developed" Gujarat there is a wide difference between men and women in terms of social equality and Dalits have been prevented many times from taking water from rivers, even recently.

Referring to Madhya Pradesh, he demanded a CBI probe into the suspicious death of Mining Inspector Sanjay Bhargava in Ujjain and Public Works Department Sub-Engineer Rameshwar Prasad Chaturvedi in Berasia tehsil near Bhopal.

The Congress leader said that he would write to MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about these issues, as allegations have been levelled in this matter, against a powerful real estate developer, who is alleged to be extremely "close" to the ruling BJP.

Criticising Chouhan for making tall claims about MP's development, Singh said he is ready for a debate on any forum with him about the issue.

He alleged that power purchase in MP was full of rampant corruption, adding that he would take up the issue of the bad condition of national highways in the state with the concerned Union minister.