NEW DELHI, June 25 - Accused by the Congress of not recognising its leaders� contribution, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a stinging counter-attack, saying the party cannot see beyond the Gandhi family and it began �flying so high� that it was disconnected from the country�s roots.
Modi said the Congress members did not mention even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh�s work in their speeches in Lok Sabha. In his hour-long reply to a two-day debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President�s Address in the House, which was later passed by a voice vote, Modi also called upon lawmakers to rise above partisan politics to build a new and modern India.
He was unsparing in his criticism of the Congress, targeting the party for not recognising the contributions of leaders outside its ruling Gandhi-Nehru family, missing opportunities to empower Muslim women and �crushing India�s soul� by imposing Emergency, whose anniversary fell on Tuesday.
Modi quoted a former minister in the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government, which brought a law to overrule the Supreme Court ruling on the Shah Bano case to placate Muslims, as saying recently that its leaders claimed that it was not the duty of their party to uplift Muslims. � PTI
