NGOs, citizens’ groups release manifesto

VADODARA: Two days before the second phase of Gujarat elections, several NGOs and citizens groups released ‘Vichare Gujarat’ (Think, Gujarat), a peoples’ manifesto, urging voters to choose their candidates after giving due consideration to the issues concerning citizens of the state. By promising 50 lakh houses in his party’s manifesto, CM Narendra Modi has unwittingly admitted that at least two crore Gujaratis are homeless right now.Then, how does he explain all the talk of development that he is supposed to have done,” representatives of about 40 organizations like Janpath, People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Gujarat Lok Samiti said. tnn
Expressing concern at atrocities against dalits, the members pointed out that the state police had failed to arrest even a single accused in the Thangadh violence during the 82 days after the incident, which was surprising since the same state police had nabbed an accused from the Nepal border within one week of his stabbing and killing a woman.
Stating that there had been gross violations of constitutional and democratic practices in the state during the past ten years, the members pointed out that days of assembly sittings had been on the decrease while the seat of deputy speaker had been allowed to stay vacant all these years.
“There are 13,000 RTI applications still pending , even though, following public pressure, the government increased the number of RTI commissioners to three from one . Smaller stats such as Haryana and Goa have three commissioners while states like Punjab have ten commissioners,” they said.
The state government had also not bothered to add any members to the state human rights commission and the women commission ,which were one-man army right now. “The district level human rights courts get no publicity, which is the reason why there have received only 50 cases in the last ten years,” the representatives said.
“No protection officers have been appointed despite growing incidents of violence against women, and despite alarming number of missing children, no commission for child protection has been appointed. This, in a state with 11 lakh children out of schools,” they claimed
Those who addressed the media included Gautam Thaker, InduKumar Jani, Harinesh Pandya, Uttam Parmar, Rajni Dave, Dhiru Mistry and Mahesh Pandya.
The Peoples’ manifesto lists several issues various heads like god governance, ownership of natural resources, agriculture, Panchayati raj,women, education, unorganized and downtrodden sector,dalits, among others.