Congress flaunts Gujarat contributions, to send book to PM Modi

NEW DELHI: The Congress sought to refute the prime minister’s comments that the party had neglected Gujarat and that it had a disliking for him due to his “poor origin” by reeling out initiatives for the state by its governments at the Centre in the past and stating that it was the Congress that had made the poor the centre of national politics.

“Modi ji should remember it was former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who coined the slogan ‘garibi hatao’ and worked for the development of the poor,” Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said at a presser on Monday, hours after the PM made the comments at a rally in poll-bound Gujarat.

Sharma said Modi “has a habit of commenting on the Congress without knowing its history” and promised to send the PM a book on Congress history “to help him acquire a better knowledge on the party”.

The Congress spokesman said that the governments led by the party at the Centre, from Jawaharlal Nehru’s onwards, took the initiative to set up in Gujarat various prestigious institutions such as IIT, IIM, Amul, Indian Institute of Fashion Technology, Indian Institute of Public Health and Administration, major ports, an ONGC unit, oil refinery, etc, and in the process helped Gujarat emerge as among the most developed states in the country.

Sharma said that maybe Modi forgot that former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri belonged to a poor family and that Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, hailed from a poor family too and came to India as a refugee. He also recalled, “for the benefit of Modi”, that Sardar Patel was the president of the Congress, as well as the home minister and deputy PM of India.

The Congress spokesman also questioned the Modi government’s pro-poor credentials. “Congress had abolished the zamindari system. PM Modi has relations with big industrialists but not poverty. They have not made any decision in the favour of poor,” he said.