'Couldn't He Get Bananas in India?' Smriti Irani Takes a Dig at Rahul Gandhi in Amethi

Amethi (UP): Union Minister for Textiles Smriti Irani on Monday attacked the Congress accusing it of being a party dedicated to one family and loath to work for the development of the country.

"The Congress is a party dedicated to one family... how can it work for the development of the country or Amethi," said Irani after inaugurating and dedicating to the people various schemes worth Rs 77 crores in Congress president Rahul Gandhi's parliamentary constituency.

In a dig at Gandhi's initiative on the distribution of banana saplings among Amethi farmers, Irani said, "Rahul Gandhi criticises the RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi all over the country but he is treading the RSS path of planting banana trees."

"I came to know that Rahul Gandhi is getting bananas seeds of foreign origin planted here, he could not get even banana plants in the country... he should know that poverty cannot be eradicated by planting a couple of banana saplings," she stressed.

Reiterating her allegation that the Gandhi family has done nothing for Amethi, she said what they failed to do in 60 years, the BJP government managed to do in just over four years.

"Rahul has been an MP for the past 15 years and no 'rozgar mela' was organised... it was done during the Modi government's tenure and over 7,500 unemployed youths are likely to get jobs due to it," she said.

Maintaining that today's programme has been organised to mark the fulfilment of the promises made by Prime Minister Modi in 2014, she said by the 2022, every household in Amethi will have electricity and all the poor here will have their houses.

Speaking on the occasion, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said the state government will leave no stone unturned for development of Amethi.

He termed Rahul Gandhi as "dynastic" president of his party.

To a question on building Ram temple in Ayodhya, Maurya told reporters on the sidelines of the function that the temple will be built at the same place in Ayodhya but he evaded another question on the deadline of its construction.