BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi Sunday said no Sikh farmer settled in Gujarat's Kutch region will have to leave the state.

 

 Addressing a rally in Punjab's Jagraon town, over 40 km from Ludhiana, Modi said "misinformation" was being spread that Sikh farmers, who were cultivating the land for decades, were being uprooted from the Kutch area by the Gujarat government.

 

 "Let me assure you that no Sikh farmer will be forced to leave Gujarat. Instead, if any officer has done anything wrong (in this regard), he will have to go," the Gujarat chief minister said.

 

 Thousands of Sikh and Punjabi families settled in Kutch area of Gujarat in the 1960s and are cultivating land there. The Modi government in Gujarat came in for criticism for passing an order under which farmers from other states re-settled in Kutch were to be dispossessed of their land.

 

 The issue had become embarrassing for the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government in Punjab since Gujarat also has a BJP government.