Narendra Modi during the Independence Day function in Bhuj. (PTI)
, speaking at a college in the Kutch desert an hour after the Prime Minister made his Independence Day address in Delhi, took on Manmohan Singh directly today, as expected.
The Gujarat Chief Minister slammed the PM's speech as uninspiring, picked holes in Dr Singh's words and offered lacerating comment on the Congress-led UPA government's policy on China and Pakistan. (
Highlights of Narendra Modi's speech)
To attack the PM, Mr
Modi invoked the President's address to the nation yesterday, saying, "I had hoped that the President's concerns on Pakistan would have been addressed by the PM from the Red Fort but that was not the case." The PM, he said, should have sent a stronger message to Pakistan.
(10 things Narendra Modi attacked PM on in his Independence Day speech)Mr Modi is expected to be named the BJP's presumptive Prime Minister for 2014 soon, and his fans hope his next Independence Day speech will be at Delhi's Red Fort. That was clearly never far from Mr Modi's mind as he delivered his speech at the Lalan College in Bhuj before a 25,000-strong crowd.
"The media says this is the PM's last Independence Day speech and he says 'We have a long distance to cover.' Kis rocket mein chad kar fasla tai karoge, Pradhan Mantri Ji (Which rocket do you intend to take to cover these miles)?" he asked.
In more taunts that peppered his address, the Gujarat Chief Minister accused Dr Singh's "brigade" of "targeting Modi on their computers," referring to a pitched social media battle being fought between Congress and BJP supporters. "Don't they have a world beyond Modi? On Independence Day, they could've at least sung the national anthem," Mr Modi said.
He also challenged the PM to what he called a competition between Gujarat and Delhi and took the Congress on issues like its flagship food security bill, listed by the PM as an important to-do in his speech. Yesterday, the Gujarat Chief Minister had declared that his Independence speech in a far corner of the country would draw as much attention as the PM's address at Delhi's Red Fort.
In his Independence Day address, the PM too seemed to attack Mr Modi when he said, "There can be no place for narrow and sectarian ideologies in a modern, progressive and secular country."
The Congress has accused Mr Modi of indulging in "petty politics". "Targeting the PM on a day when he is speaking for the unity and integrity of the country is not appropriate," Congress leader and Union Minister Salman Khurshid told NDTV.