The ambitious smart city project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan failed to attract attention of five of the seven legislators of the State capital.
Five legislators of Bhopal including two senior ministers of the State cabinet Babulal Gaur and Umashankar Gupta, BJP MlAs Vishwas Sarang and Surendranath Singh and the only Congress MlA Arif Aqueel were remarkably absent from the important programme of Smart City project launching workshop held at Hotel Noor-us-Sabah on Saturday.
Gupta is said to be unhappy over selection of his constituency for the smart city project as he fears that dislocation of slums from his constituency would shrink his vote base, while Gaur is unhappy over the issue because he was not taken into confidence over selection of the localities in the smart city project.
Sarang and Singh’s absence in the important meeting also raised eyebrows as both are considered as close confidants of chief minister and their absence from chief minister’s ambitious project that was to be addressed by PM Modi raised many questions especially when the project has stirred many a controversies right from its beginning.
Moreover, an independent Corporator in the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) Jagdish Yadav also created scene over the choice of smart city in his ward. Yadav tried to reach the meeting venue by wearing black clothes but was stopped by the police near the polytechnic square.
Yadav said that the smart city works in his work would require lot of trees cutting resulting in loss of greenery and that is why he is opposed of the project.