Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the Prime Minister has not uttered a word on the Tuticorin incident but he has “plenty of time to throw challenges and to throw counter-challenges. (File)
The Congress on Thursday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his silence on the killing of 12 people in police firing in Tuticorin. Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the Tuticorin incident was the result of a “deadly cocktail of central government complicity, of police brutality, of state government apathy and of corporate ruthlessness”.
He claimed the BJP government had in December 2014 reversed a 2013 UPA government order and the change meant that “if a plant is located in an industrial zone, it requires no environmental clearance merely by the fact that it is located in an industrial zone — whether that zone has an environmental clearance or not, does not matter”.
He said the Prime Minister has not uttered a word on the Tuticorin incident but he has “plenty of time to throw challenges and to throw counter-challenges… the fitness challenge has priority enough in his mind to respond”. He was referring to the Prime Minister accepting an online fitness dare from cricketer Virat Kohli.
Meanwhile, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi threatened to launch a nationwide stir if Modi failed to reduce the rising fuel prices and posed him a “fuel challenge”. “Dear PM, Glad to see you accept the @imVkohli fitness challenge. Here’s one from me: Reduce fuel prices or the Congress will do a nationwide agitation and force you to do so. I look forward to your response,” he tweeted using the hashtag ‘FuelChallenge’.