Bangalore: "Invisible souls helped me to come to power.....now, the Government is being run by the grace of God....our contribution is nothing", Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti said today (Aug 18, 2004).

Bharti said in Bangalore that during the run-up to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, her opponents unleashed a campaign against her that a "Sanyasin clad in saffron" cannot do anything and the state would face "problems".

"And then, it was as if invisible souls and invisible forces felt challenged (by the campaign) and they joined forces to help me win the elections with a three-fourth majority."

Bharti, who spoke passionately at a meeting of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Bangalore, said her Government was being run by the grace of God and her contribution was nothing.

"Whether it was improvement in law and order or attracting investment into the State, it's God's will," according to her.

Bharti also spoke out strongly in favour of gender equality and said out of the 38,000 teachers that the Madhya Pradesh Government proposed to recruit, 50 per cent would be women. "We don't believe in 33 per cent (reservation). We will give 50 per cent", she said. If God wanted to grant her a boon, all she would ask was making the women folk economically independent, she said, expressing the view that until women became financially independent, they could face only humiliation in life.