Gujarat: PIL filed in HC over expenses on Modi's Sadbhavna fast

Ahmedabad: Chief minister Narendra Modi may have tried to erase the taint of the 2002 riots through his Sadbhavna Mission fast but his troubles are unlikely to end any time too soon. An NGO, Vikalp trust, has filed a PIL asking Modi to make public the expenses incurred on his three-day fast and that he or his party pay for the expenses.

The PIL is likely to come up for hearing before a high court bench headed by the acting chief justice later in the week. The trust has made the chief minister himself party respondent in the case, apart from the state government, secretary of the finance department, the DGP and the municipal commissioner.

The petitioner has contended that the chief minister had misused the whole government machinery for his personal gain and that public money had been wasted. As the Sadbhvna Mission fast was focussed only on Modi, he or his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), should pay the government exchequer the money spent on his fast, the PIL has demanded.

"The government violated all civic, security and policing norms in conducting the three-day sadbhavna mission at the University Convention Centre from September 17 onwards," said KG Pandit, counsel for the Vikalp trust.

"When a common man has to organise such an event, he has to seek prior permission from various government agencies such as the municipal corporation and the police commissionerate," Pandit said.

He further said that in their PIL they had asked whether the Modi government had taken all the prior permission needed and, if yes, when and who had granted it in such a hurried manner.

"We have also sought an account of the expenses incurred on the three-day fast, which was not a government function at all nor for public welfare. The function was centred on Modi alone; hence, he and his party should bear all its expenses. The money with the government comes from the public and it should not be spent on a personal cause of the chief minister," Pandit said. Modi started the three-day 'sadbhavna mission' fast from his birthday, September 17, after the Supreme Court's order of September 12 which did not indict him in the riot cases directly but left a decision in the matter to the local magisterial court.

The sadbhavna mission fast was attended by the top leaders of the national BJP, religious leaders, representatives of NGOs, and community leaders who had come to greet Modi at the function. Thousands of people from across the state also greeted the chief minister on the occasion.

However, the fast was severely condemned by the main opposition Congress party which held a parallel three-day fast on the footpath of the Mahatma Gandhi ashram.