Vijay Rupani at the Sankalp Bhumi, Vadodara. Bhupendra Rana Vijay Rupani at the Sankalp Bhumi, Vadodara. Bhupendra Rana

Equating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vikas sankalp (pledge for development) with the pledges taken by personalities like Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Dr B R Ambedkar, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Saturday said it was a privilege that so many historical pledges were taken on the soil of Gujarat.

At a ceremony to lay the foundation stone of Ambedkar Smarak, which will come up along the banks of Vishwamitri river, Rupani said, “In earlier years, great personalities would sit and meditate and create history. Swami Vivekananda took a pledge in Kanyakumari and delivered a lecture in America in 1893, Aurobindo Ghosh came to Vadodara and pledged the idea of Akhand Bharat, Mahatma Gandhi began his fight against the British with a pledge from Gujarat, Sardar Patel also took a pledge to awaken farmers in India with a pledge in Gujarat and emerged as the Iron Man, there was also Indu chacha (Yagnik)…and it is on this very land of Gujarat that Narendra Modi has taken the pledge of vikas to take the country forward. It is the privilege of the land of Gujarat.”

Rupani, who heaped praises on the “determination” of Ambedkar to make India a progressive country, said that Ambedkar “exhausted himself for India” and therefore, converted to the “Indian religion” of Buddhism, instead of choosing a “foreign religion” after being disillusioned by the Hindu caste system.

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