GANDHINAGAR: Around the time when Gujarat will host its seventh biennial Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit in January next, Vishwa Hindu Parishad will organize a “Hindu Sangam” in Ahmedabad. The programme scheduled for January 11 is a part of VHP’s year-long celebration of its fifty years of existence.
“As a part of our Golden Jubilee celebration, we are organizing Hindu Sammelans at every district of the state and this is a part of the same programme,” said Dilip Trivedi, the President of Gujarat VHP. The district level sammelans are starting from November, he added. It may be noted here that Gujarat will have a busy calendar in January with Pravasi Bharatiya Divas being scheduled for January 7 to January 9 in the state capital Gandhinagar ahead of Vibrant Gujarat Summit scheduled for January 11 to 13.
Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor’s Summit, a biennial summit to attract investment to Gujarat was started by Narendra Modi and has over a decade become a flagship event of the state government. However, the seventh edition of the event is the first one to be organised after Narendra Modi has moved out of Gujarat. The state government has been working overtime to render a global aura to the event and countries including Australia,Singapore, Japan, Canada, China are partnering the event with several heads of the states expected to attend the event apart from top business leaders of global stature. Several pre-event programmes too are being organized by the state government ahead of the main event.
The VHP event scheduled for the same time does therefore as sume significance as many believe it to be part of the efforts being made by the outfit, which of late has been overtaken in its own agenda by a new breed of fringe elements. VHP for long has been making efforts to resurrect itself in the state, once it’s powerful home base. But the decade-long rule of Modi government saw the outfit being systematically sidelined, and a few commentators have indeed pointed to the recent communal skirmishes that the state as part of as an effort by the organization to reclaim its position in Gujarat.
The International Secretary of VHP Pravin Togadia however refuses to accept that the organization ever lost ground in Gujarat. Speaking to ET, Togadia had earlier said “We never lost our ground in Gujarat nor shall we lose it in future.We are not a political party and have survived strictest political regimes and today VHP has been providing free primary education to nearly two million children across fifty four thousand villages in India and free healthcare through private practitioners to around one crore people. That should give you an idea about the ground support that the organization has,” he added.
The facts on the ground however indicate differently. While Togadia a one time compatriot of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had fallen out with him post 2002, Modi in his capacity as the Chief Minister of Gujarat had dealt with the organization with a heavy hand and decimated the outfit’s influence in the state. “VHP for all practical purposes have become a fringe player in Gujarat and timing their events in such a fashion may help them to attract some eyeballs,” said a BJP leader, who refused to be named. “However manoeuvres will hardly revive its fortune,” he added.