Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "insulting" previous governments over development, saying the country was not built in day. In a tweet, Gehlot said Modi should remember that a "developed" country was handed over to him following 67 years of progress when he became the Prime Minister in 2014.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have refrained from criticising the previous governments by making political statements in my presence as the Chief Minister of the state at Nathdwara event. Modi said that why the railway line and medical college were not opened earlier? Probably Modi forgot the developed country he got after 67 years of progress after independence. This country was not built in a day," Gehlot tweeted.
Gehlot's tweet comes in response to PM Modi's remark earlier in the day that Rajasthan suffered for not building infrastructure with foresight.
The Rajasthan CM further said that the country saw progress in every field, including education, health infrastructure, railways, IT, after independence. "When the British left India in 1947, the installed capacity of electricity was only 1362 MW, which increased to about 2.5 lakh MW by 2014," he said.
"The meaning of today's speech of Modi was like a 21-year-old youth who got a job being told why you didn't get a job 20 years ago. I would like to appeal to Modi that as a Prime Minister, instead of insulting your predecessors in government programs, you should thank them because they handed over such a country to you which you are able to represent in the world today," the veteran Congress leader further said.
Earlier in the day, at a programme in Nathdwara in Rajasthan's Rajsamand district, PM Modi launched various projects costing over Rs 5,500 crore in the presence of Gehlot.
Addressing the event, Modi, in an indirect dig at Congress, said those who measure everything with votes were unable to devise plans keeping the country in mind. "Because of this thinking, priority was not given to infrastructure development in the country," he said.
"If sufficient number of medical colleges had already been built, then there would have been no shortage of doctors. If every house would have started getting water earlier, then Jal Jeevan Mission would not have to be started," PM Modi further said.
In his speech, Gehlot said that the opposition should be respected in democracy and that Prime Minister Modi "will also move in this direction". "If this is done, the ruling dispensation and the opposition will be able to serve the country with more vigour," he said.