NEW DELHI: Hitting back at Narendra Modi for accusing UPA government of ignoring Jharkhand, Congress on Monday charged BJP with “misleading” the people and pointed out that the opposition party had also ruled the state for eight years.
Union minister Jairam Ramesh, chairing the coordination committee for Congress-JMM-RJD alliance government in Jharkhand, also sought to turn the table on BJP over its chief Rajnath Singh’s Sunday pitch for increasing the number of state assembly seats from 81 to 150 to give adequate representatation to 33 million people of the state.
In a hard-hitting letter to Singh, Ramesh told him that it was the “mistake” of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to create the new state with so less number of assemby seats.
“This attempt to mislead was made yesterday through ‘Modivaani’ that came from that state. The reality is different. It’s all misleading talk. Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh said in Ranchi that Jharkhand is poor and so people should ensure their victory in all 14 Lok Sabha seats in the next general election.
“Out of 13 years since Jharkhand came into being, the state had BJP chief ministers for more than eight years. Then the biggest responsibility is on them, which he forgets. For eight years and two months, it was a BJP government. The primary responsibility is of BJP,” Ramesh said.
At the AICC briefing, party spokesperson Sandip Dikshit said when Modi says that everything was destroyed in Jharkhand, he should also see who ran the governments there all this while.
“We (Congress) are there in government for just last three months. When Modi commented about lack of development in Jharkhand, he forgot that it was the first time that Congress has particiapted in any government since the state was formed.
“BJP was the first to form a goverment there after the creation of Jharkhand and they ruled for the maximum period there. May be Modi realizes that the development juggernaut of BJP got halted in Jharkhand,” Dikshit said. (PTI)
