Advani places Chouhan on par with Modi

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is "humble" like Atal Behari Vajpayee and the BJP wants both Mr. Chouhan and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi "to play a major role" in securing India an important place in the world, senior party leader L.K. Advani said on Saturday. While Mr. Modi transformed a healthy State into an excellent one, Mr. Chouhan successfully turned around a BIMARU State into a developed State, Mr. Advani said. "Vajpayee implemented several developmental schemes including road network, but he always remained very humble and far away from arrogance. "Similarly, Chouhan has also formulated a large number of development and welfare schemes like Ladli Laxmi scheme and Mukya Mantri Teerth Darshan Yojna, and implemented them successfully. Despite that I found Chouhan very humble, like Vajpayee," Mr. Advani told the BJP's booth-level coordinators in Gwalior. He further said the party wants both Mr. Chouhan and his Gujarat counterpart "to play a major role in securing India an important place in the world." Both BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are now reckoned as models of development even outside India, Mr. Advani claimed. He noted that among the tenures of all the Prime Ministers that the country had so far, Vajpayee's term was full of positives. Mr. Advani is in Gwalior to launch the Madhya Pradesh government's ambitious food security scheme whereby wheat and iodised salt will be sold at Re. 1`per kg and rice at Rs. 2 per kg.