Bharatiya Janata Party will win the upcoming Gujarat Assembly Elections with over 150 seats to its name, party president Amit Shah said at Network 18’s ’Agenda Gujarat’ event.

The BJP chief  refuted the criticism surrounding the Goods and Services Tax (GST) completely.  Shah said that within a year, traders will realise that GST as an aashirvaad blessing and not a burden. The Prime Minister is personally looking into the matter and the results will be out in the open for everyone to see, he added.

The Gujarat Assembly election will be held in two phases, on December 9 and December 14. The vote counting will happen alongside Himachal Pradesh Assembly election’s on December 18.

Shah spoke at length about the ’Gujarat model’ and its merits and pointed out that every village in Gujarat now has electricity around the clock. He also addressed a few questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s involvement with Gujarat. He took a veiled dig a Congress President Sonia Gandhi when she said that Modi, who was earlier the chief minister of the state, is  now in New Delhi and "not Italy"  and therefore, is taking care of Gujarat even now.

Defending the Gujarat model from critics, particularly the Congress, Shah said that the Congress must first look at the Amethi model before talking about the Gujarat one. "We don’t want any comparison with the ’Amethi model’. We don’t want Gujarat to go in that direction," Shah said.

Shah said that it is impossible to give employment to 125 crore Indians and that self-employment is the only way forward.

The BJP president even brushed aside Congress’ growing presence on social media platforms, saying whatever increase in presence the party might have witnessed, it was important to see where the increased popularity came from.

"Congress may have increased its presence on social media, but the question that needs to be answered is where is that increase, in Kazakhstan?" Shah remarked.

 15 Nov 2017, 12:01 PM