PM says govt works for poor, not Ambani, Adani

AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that his government builds toilets for the poor, not for industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, as he retorted against allegations that he caters only to big businessmen.

His remarks were in response to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s repeated jibes that the N DA government works only for rich industrialists.

“My government has initiated a drive for constructing toilets,” Modi said in tribal-dominated Dahod.

“Was it rich people who used to attend nature’s call in the open … was such a practice followed by Ambani and Adani?Isn’t it for the poor people of India?” he said.

Then at Netrang, he invoked Ambani and Adani again and asked if they live in villages identified by his government to provide electricity. “Isn’t it for the poor people?”

He said his government was committed to bring electricity to 18,000 villages across the country.

The toilets he was referring to are part of his government’s Swachh Bharat campaign to dissuade people from defecating in the open, a practice rampant among the poor people with no access to washrooms. During his rallies in Gujarat, Gandhi had accused Prime Minister Modi of favouring only industrialists. The state votes on December 9 and 14 to elect a new assembly.

Modi is also campaigning in his home state, where the BJP has been in power for more than two decades.

He paid tribute to BR Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution and champion of Dalit rights, on his death anniversary. The Prime Minister accused the Congress of grave injustice to the Dalit icon.