Saikat Datta and Mahesh Langa, Hindustan Times New Delhi/Gandhinagar, April 19, 2014
Official documents show that not only did the Gujarat government go beyond the Aadhaar requirements, they also threatened to take "penal action" if the data was not given. The chief minister was also appointed as chairman of the committee to oversee implementation of the Aadhaar project in Gujarat.
These findings were made available to HT by Venkatesh Nayak, an RTI activist and programme coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Nayak told HT that while there are several problems with the Aadhaar project, Modi's criticism is at variance from what his government did. “I checked how much and how often the state government under Mr Modi had opposed the rollout of Aadhaar in Gujarat.”
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, “Aadhaar was being pushed by the Union government through an executive order and as CM of Gujarat, it was expected of Mr Modi to get it implemented in the state. But that does not mean that he will not question it and point out what is wrong in the scheme. If he did not get it done in Gujarat, he would then have been blamed for delaying it.??”
(With inputs from Moushumi Dasgupta)