Union Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday attacked the Nehru-Gandhi family for the lack of development in Amethi and Rae Bareli saying what the Gandhi family could not do there in decades, the Modi government did in the last one year.
The comments from the human resource development minister came in the wake of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's attack on the Modi government over the reported scrapping of a mega food park project in his constituency of Amethi.
"No step was taken by the Congress leader to make Amethi Food Park a reality since its announcement in 2010," Smriti said at a press conference at the party headquarters here, without taking Rahul's name.
"Since the member of parliament from Amethi was out of the country for 56 days, and has no time to visit there, he can not feel the change that has taken place there in the last one year," the minister said.
Setting up the mega food park was not viable there, even after the deadline was extended at least eight times, she added.
The Rs.200-crore project was inaugurated in October 2013 by Rahul Gandhi.
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She also said that the BJP has been helping the people of Amethi as and when required.
"The constituency where Congress has won for so long, our workers attend to it when people need help."
She also attacked the Nehru-Gandhi family for poor rail and road connectivity between Amethi and Rae Bareli.
"We are making roads there at a rate of 12 kilometres per day. Our government has sanctioned Rs.40 crore for the Amethi-Unchahar railway track, which was pending since long. Not only that, we have just started the doubling of railway network between Amethi and Rae Bareli," the minister said.
"Are these not politics of 'change'? Those who are doing the 'politics of sympathy' must answer, what they did for the well being of their constituencies," she asked.
Earlier in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi urged the government not to scrap the proposed food park in Amethi, reminding it that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself had said during the 2014 general election that "he is not a practitioner of politics of revenge but one of change".