Muscat: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Indian community at Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Muscat, Oman on Sunday. (PTI Photo)
The Congress on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of insulting his predecessors and the country’s achievements during his visits abroad, saying his conduct was “undemocratic”, and “bodes ill for the country”.
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said that the prime minister should not look down upon his predecessors, alleging that he was “misusing” state machinery for his personal promotion during his foreign visits. “His thinking, his mindset is authoritarian. This is undemocratic and it bodes ill for the country. I have said so and I need not repeat that government’s resources have throughout been misused in the past for organising mega event shows,” he said, referring to prime minister’s events abroad such as the ones held in Madison Square in New York or the Wembley Stadium in London.
Sharma had last year also hit out at BJP for criticising Rahul Gandhi’s address in the US. In November 2017, he had said that Congress vice president “raised respect for India abroad” unlike “PM Narendra Modi’s speeches abroad in the early days when he was guilty of insulting India”.
The Congress MP’s sharp reaction came after PM Modi’s just concluded Oman visit. He cited a letter purportedly written by Indian Ambassador to Oman Indra Mani Pandey to Indian businessmen, seeking their support to ensure the success of a mega Indian diaspora event during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Muscat.
According to Sharma, Pandey in the letter, had asked the businessmen to ensure the presence of Indians employed by them at the event.
“The prime minister true to his characteristic style continues to insult history and India’s achievements since independence. He prefers to live in his make-belief world and in the past,” he said.
On Sunday, Modi had targeted Congress, while addressing the Indian diaspora in Oman’s capital. He had said that India’s image had suffered due to a long list of scams in the previous regime and his government worked hard to change the “style of misgovernance”.
Sharma said that PM Modi was using the same allegations, which he did more than four years ago during his campaign for the prime ministerial post. “We condemn what he has said and reject the falsehoods that he has hurled,” he told mediapersons. “Our advice to the Prime Minister is — learn to live in the present, give an account of the present and think about the future of this country,” Sharma said, adding that the present BJP government had failed to deliver on their promises.
With inputs from PTI