Modi, Gogoi take poll rivalry to Assam event

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he was fortunate to unveil the Brahmaputra Cracker & Polymers plant that his predecessor could not.

Inaugurating the Rs 9,965-crore gas cracker project of Brahmaputra Cracker & Polymers Limited at Lepetkota in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh district, Mr Modi said, “It appears I am destined to give shape to all unfinished projects. I don’t think I should have the opportunity to inaugurate these projects. This should have been done long ago. Had this gas cracker project been completed 25 years ago, the second generation of people in Assam could have found employment. We have had this tendency to delay so much that a project that should have cost Rs 500 crore end up costing Rs 10-11,000 crore.”

The PM said, “My government fast-tracked the gas cracker project as part of its Act East policy to ensure Assam and the Northeast keep pace with the development elsewhere in India.”

“I don’t mind (getting credit for UPA projects) as long as the country benefits,” Mr Modi said in an obvious reference to the remark of Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi who in his speech said that chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar should ideally have given credit to former PM Manmohan Singh and the state government for facilitating the project.

Mr Kumar had earlier insisted that Mr Modi’s vision had made the gas cracker project, in the making for years, possible.

“Projects of such magnitude are not built in a day, and subsidies of 53 per cent ensured by then Prime Minister Dr Singh helped the gas cracker plant come up. Mr Ananth Kumar perhaps does not like us,” Mr Gogoi said.

Earlier, Mr Modi reiterated that development of eastern parts of India is a core priority for his government because that is how all-round development of the country is possible.

The prosperity of the nation is linked to the development of Northeast. “And it is our priroty,” said Mr Modi.

The Prime Minister in his speech, also batted for a new development model for the north- eastern states to enable the harnessing of the “collective strength” of the region along with the neighbouring countries as part of the Centre’s ‘Act East Policy’.