Rahul Gandhi Takes A Swipe At PM Narendra Modi, Smriti Irani Gives It Back

New Delhi: In a broad swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his advice to bureaucrats not to use social media for self-promotion, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said leading by example was certainly overrated. The suggestion was that PM Modi didn't lead by example, an oblique reference to the government's high-pitched publicity campaigns that center around Mr Modi.
 

Leading by example is clearly overrated

- Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) April 22, 2017

PM Modi, for now, hasn't responded. But Mr Gandhi got it back from elsewhere: Textiles Minister Smriti Irani. "Look who is talking about being overrated," she commented a few hours later when she retweeted Mr Gandhi.

Addressing bureaucrats at a conference to mark the Civil Services Day on Friday, PM Modi had told bureaucrats that their "big strength" was that they were faceless. "Many officers would have had vision, implemented something and the entire country benefited from the idea. But if you go looking for who came up with the idea, you will not be able to find them. This is the best quality of the Indian civil service," he said.

He further shared that mobile phones are banned in his meetings and stressed on the merits of anonymity while working on schemes. Social media, he said, should be used to reach people for their welfare and benefit.

The last time Rahul Gandhi and PM Modi had taken pot-shots at each other was during the peak of the assembly elections over demonetisation.

Addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnore in January, PM Modi had said, "If you check on Google, no other politician has so many jokes on him as the Congress neta... The way he talks...his antics are such that even senior Congress leaders stay 10 feet away from him."

PM Modi is the most followed leader on Twitter and Instagram in the country.