Veteran Gandhians and activists have written to Anna Hazare, saying that claims of rural development made by Gujarat under chief minister Narendra Modi were false and the noted anti-corruption crusader needs to correct his statement about the BJP leader.

Hazare had on Sunday praised Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar for their efforts on rural development, and said their counterparts in other states should emulate them.

"We would like to add here that your statement regarding development in rural area requires a thorough correction. The development crazy Narendra Modi has done a great harm to the rural area," veteran Gandhian Chunibhai Vaidya and other activists, including Prakash Shah, Ilabahen Pathak and Indukumar Jani, said in a letter to Hazare.

"He (Modi) is responsible for the desertion of the villages by more than 10 per cent of the population which includes mainly youth; this we say from the statistics of the Census recently concluded," Vaidya added.

So far as the corruption problem is concerned, it should be noted that crores of square meters of land had been alloted to the industries at throwaway prices, he said.

Vaidya invited Hazare to visit Gujarat and "report to the country the facts clouded by the trumpets of the state".

Meanwhile, noted danseuse Mallika Sarabhai wrote an email to Hazare, expressing her shock at the veteran social activist's endorsement of Modi on the rural development front.

"There has been little or no rural development in this state. In fact, grazing and irrigated farmlands have been stealthily taken by the government and sold off at ridiculous prices to a small club of industrialists," she said.

"The state is in terrible debt because of his (Modi) largess to industry, while 21 lakh farmers wait for compensation. Your endorsement is appalling and we will be forced to distance ourselves from the Lokpal movement unless it is irrevocably retracted," she said.

Sarabhai further said that there has been no Lokayukta in Gujarat for nearly seven years and hence hundreds of complaints against corruption are lying unheard.

"The state is in terrible debt because of his (Modi) largesse to industry, while 21 lakh farmers wait for compensation. Your endorsement is appalling and we will be forced to distance ourselves from the Lokpal movement unless it is irrevocably retracted," she said.