Ahmedabad:
Hours after being targeted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi over corruption charges, the Narendra Modi government got a major relief today with a probe commission giving it a clean chit in cases of land allotment.
The one-man commission of retired judge - Justice MB Shah, which submitted its interim report today, has found "no illegality in land allotments," according to the state government.
"The commission has submitted an interim report on its findings and concluded that the state government has adhered to proper procedures of land allotment and no illegality has been committed," said Gujarat government's spokesperson Jaynarayan Vyas.
The Congress in 2011 had gone to the President, alleging that Mr Modi's government had favoured some industrial houses with land allotment. The state government in August last year had set up the one-man commission to probe the allegations in nine such cases.
The allotments that the Congress had raised questions about included the one made to the Tatas for their Nano plant outside Ahmedabad. Along with the allotment to the Tatas, the Gujarat government has been given a clean chit in eight other land allotment cases by the Shah Commission.
Mrs Gandhi, who started off her party's campaign for the Gujarat elections today, attacked the Modi government for corruption, saying "Why Lokayukta has not been appointed in your state for the last eight years? These people (BJP) are not against corruption, they are only against us (Congress)."
In a two-phase polling, Gujarat will vote on December 13 and 17. The counting of votes will be done on December 20.