Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his comments on the State’s development,Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said, “You (PM) get elected in Rajya Sabha from Assam.
The entire country knows about the massacre that went on in your home state six months back. Districts after districts were engulfed in communal violence.” “However, in the last 10 years there had been no communal violence in Gujarat,” he added.
Asserting that Singh was trying “to disturb the atmosphere of peace, unity and brotherhood through vote-bank politics”, Modi gave the example of Shaheen Dhada who was arrested in Maharashtra for her Facebook comments on late Bal Thackeray and who later shifted to Gujarat with her family. “She prefers to stay in Gujarat rather than in Maharashtra. You are trying to defame the State, but girls like Shaheen have proved you wrong,” Modi said.
In his election speech, Singh further said, “The foundation of Gujarat’s development was laid by the Congress governments in 70s. It is due to the hardworking people of this State that it is considered to be developing.”
Arguing that Gujarat lagged behind at the 18th number in a list of 20 states ranked in terms of human development indicators, the PM said new employment opportunities for the youth were not being generated.
“Gujarat has not been able to spend a large amount of Centre’s fund sent for employment generation in rural areas of the State. No new employment opportunities are being generated here for unemployed youths,” Singh said.
Immediately after Singh’s speech, Modi re-tweeted latest data collated by the Union Labour Ministry which showed that “Gujarat has among the lowest unemployment rates among all states in the country”.