DABHOI/KEVADIYA: On his 67th birthday, PM Narendra Modi gifted to the nation the Sardar Sarovar dam on Narmada River, the mega project often termed as the lifeline for the state, which goes to polls in the next three months.

‘Immense propaganda campaign on environmental impact of project'

As Gujarat CM in 2006, Modi had gone on a 51-hour fast to pressure the Congress-led UPA to permit rising the height of the dam.

With the state BJP harping on water as a key vote churner in the coming polls, Modi hit out at the project's antagonist — the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Congress — without naming them by recalling how this "engineering marvel" had to overcome a violent flow of conspiracies and sustained campaigns of canard to become a reality after five decades of building.

Prime Minister Modi has almost kicked off the campaign for the forthcoming assembly polls with his back-to-back visits to Gujarat. On September 14, he along with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in groundbreaking ceremony for ambitious project — Rs 1.1 lakh crore Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train.

"No other project in the world has faced as many difficulties as the Sardar Sarovar Dam. But we were strong-minded to complete the project," Modi said at a rally in Dabhoi, around 60 km from Kevadiya where he devoted the project to the nation. While hailing the contribution of Sardar Patel, who had conceived the idea of a dam over the Narmada, as well as Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Modi took a swipe at Congress saying that the progress of Sardar Sarovar had always hit roadblocks when people, who give more importance to their party than the nation, were ruling. He said.

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