The development that Modiji keeps harping on is all here, but has somehow skipped our village, say voters in Mundra
Mundra, Kutch (Gujarat): A key industrial hub of Gujarat, Mundra has failed to provide jobs to local youths, claim villagers from surrounding areas.
“We have well-educated youngsters, people with technical diplomas, but they don’t have work. They do odd jobs such as driving auto-rickshaws,” Anwar Haji, a BJP worker in Nana Kapaya village, told ThePrint.
“We have about 3,000 families living in this village, but only a few of them work in the industries and that too on contractual basis. The problem of unemployment is serious here,” he added.
While Haji praises the BJP for rebuilding the region and bringing about industrial development after the 2001 earthquake, Sakur Sumara, a Congress worker insists these are just tall claims.
“The vikas that Modiji keeps harping on is all here. It begins from here, but has somehow skipped our village,” Sumara said.
The Nana Kapaya village, which is a 10-minute drive from Mundra Port, is flanked by industries such as Jindal Saw, Mundra International Container Terminal and Adani Wilmar.
Mundra comes under the Mandvi assembly constituency, which has been a BJP seat since 1985 except for five years from 2002, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Kutch.
The area has grown into an industrial hub over the past decade and has become a showcase of PM Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development.
Even people from other villages in and around the Mundra Special Economic Zone, such as Dhrab, Zarapara, Baraya and Bhujpur, have not benefited much from the development around them. Most employees of the big industries are migrants from other states, they claim.
The Congress has been alleging that BJP sold land to industries at throwaway prices and brought about development that only favours big business houses and not the local population of Gujarat.
Senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil will be taking on BJP’s Virendrasinh Jadeja in the Mandvi constituency.
“The industries have only brought suffering. We have lost a significant portion of land where our animals used to graze. Getting clean drinking water is another problem here,” said Usman Abdul Rehman, a villager.
“Our locals don’t have jobs. Every day, they go out in search of work,” he added. Rehman and his family have been Congress voters.
In the next-door Zarapara village, Shivraj Gadvi, a farmer, said, “There is vikas. We can see it, but we cannot feel it.”
“Yes, there are better roads connecting our villages, there is a government high school in our village now. But, our boys are jobless and our agriculture has suffered due to the polluted air and worsening water quality,” he added.
Gadvi and his family still plan to vote for the BJP. “We don’t blame the government. We blame the companies for all this,” he said.
Aala Rajde, a farmer who works in date palm plantations, has similar reservations about the BJP’s claims of Mundra’s development. “There are jobs here for people from north and south India, but not for us. But I have faith in BJP only because of Narendra Modi. Till Modi is there, I will keep voting for the BJP,” he said.