‘Happy’ to see Rahul Gandhi speak, says no more ‘earthquake’ threat now, Modi Taunts Cong VP
VARANASI : Prime Minister Narendra Modi today delivered a stinging reply to Rahul Gandhi using his “earthquake” comment, a day after the Congress Vice President accused him of receiving crores in kickbacks as Chief Minister of Gujarat.
“They have a youth leader; he is learning how to speak. Since the time he has learnt how to speak, I am the happiest. In 2009, you couldn’t even tell what is inside this packet. Now we are finding out. If he hadn’t spoken, there could have been an earthquake.
It would have been an earthquake that people would have had to deal with for 10 years. Good he has started speaking… there is no chance of an earthquake now,” PM Modi said while launching a cancer hospital in his constituency Varanasi.
In his riposte, the Prime Minister drew on Mr Gandhi’s assertions last week that he would cause an “earthquake” by exposing what he called the “personal corruption of PM Modi,” amid a row over the government’s ban on 500 and 1,000 rupee notes aimed at fighting corruption and black money.
Mr Gandhi chose the Prime Minister’s home turf Mehsana in Gujarat to allege on Wednesday that Income Tax raids had revealed that the “Sahara group paid off Narendra Modiji nine times in six months” starting 2013. He also said that computer records from a Birla Group official during raids in 2013 referred to bribes to “Gujarat CM”.
The ruling BJP called the Congress leader a “bluffmaster” and said he was insulting the Supreme Court, which has not found merit in the allegations.Mr Gandhi’s allegations are part of a case now before the Supreme Court that was filed by activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
The Prime Minister called the notes ban a “big cleanliness drive” and remarked on his critics: “I never thought that some political parties and leaders would have the audacity to stand with the corrupt.”
