Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah have "fooled" people in the name of the Gujarat model of development, which he dubbed as a "failure".
Singh also criticised Shankersinh Vaghela for quitting the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls and for voting against party leader Ahmed Patel in Rajya Sabha elections held last month.
"The way Narendra Modiji and Amit Shahji have fooled us and made us 'Pappu' is something unprecedented," Singh told reporters in coastal Porbandar where he interacted with local Congress workers before leaving for Dwarka.
Questioning the "Gujarat model of development", the Congress leader said the state lags behind other states on the indicator of social development and that "several MoUs signed during the Vibrant Gujarat summits have not been realised".
"Where is the Gujarat model? On social development indicator, the state is slotted at 13th or 14th position, and while MOUs were signed in Vibrant Gujarat, factories were not set up. Gujarat is nowhere number one at any level," he said.
Ahead of 2014 polls, Modi, then the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP, had often touted Gujarat as the most developed state.
Taking on Vaghela, Singh said the former had betrayed the party.
"The Congress offered you (Vaghela) everything. It made you chief minister and union minister. The party helped you in every possible way, but you quit the party at such a (critical) juncture (before assembly elections). You betrayed the person like Ahmed Patel who always helped you," Singh told reporters at Porbandar.
Vaghela, who had demanded that he be declared the chief ministerial face for the upcoming polls, had quit the party ahead of RS polls last month.
After Ahmed Patel scraped through in the close contest against his BJP rival Balwantsinh Rajput, the Congress expelled Vaghela and seven other MLAs for cross-voting.
Vaghela, who subsequently resigned as an MLA, has not yet announced his next political move.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)