PM Narendra Modi addressed the Panchayat Mahasammelan at GMC ground in Ahmedabad on Friday. “Gujarat is the land of Bapu and Sardar Vallabhai Patel Patel. We must fulfil Bapu’s dream of Grameen Vikas”, said Narendra Modi. Modi began his two-day visit to his home state a day after the BJP won the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur on Thursday.
“Mahatma Gandhi always highlighted the importance of rural development, self-reliance and strong villages”, Modi added.
Gujarat has a three-tier Panchayati Raj structure, with 33 district panchayats, 248 taluka panchayats and over 14,500-gram panchayats. ‘Gujarat Panchayat Mahasammelan: Aapnu Gaam, Aapnu Gaurav’ will witness the participation of more than 1 lakh representatives from the three tiers of the Panchayati Raj institutions in the State.
The PM said, “a representation of women met him during his CM tenure, informing him that they decided to organise an all-women panchayat. The class 5 literate woman sarpanch wished to ensure that there wouldn’t be any poor in the village, he was inspired by their wish”.
“Now, there are more women than men who represent the Panchayati Raj system in Gujarat”, he added. So we don’t need the system of Sarpanch Pati where husbands of the elected sarpanch do all the work on behalf of her, stressed Modi.
Modi asked elected village representatives to hold grand anniversary celebrations of primary schools to ensure children are encouraged to study. “We can take responsibility to audit our schools, we can ask the panchayat representatives to bring technology such as optical fibre and telemedicine to villages. The representatives can decide that in five years of their tenure, no child drops out of school, no child is devoid of vaccination, all work of the village is done in the best way”, he added.
Narendra Modi said that the election results are evidence of how BJP is winning the election through development governance.
