PM Modi gets bigger crowd in Sydney than Congress leaders get in India: Arun Jaitley
New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley attacked Congress for questioning the genuineness of crowds seen during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trips abroad
"If UPA leaders, during their days in Government, left the expatriate Indian population underwhelmed, is it to be presumed that this should be true for others?" Mr Jaitley said in a blog.
Congress leader Salman Khurshid has suggested that people are taken from India for "slogan-shouting".
Mr Khurshid, former External Affairs Minister, referred Mr Modi's address to the Indian diaspora in Nay Pyi Taw three days back and questioned how a crowd of 20,000 people gathered in the Myanmarese capital where streets are generally empty.
"Yahan se logon ko le ja kar naare lagwa rahe hain (Modi is taking people from here for slogan-shouting abroad)," Mr Khurshid told reporters in Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday night.
"I have been to Nay Pyi Taw twice. No one is found on the streets there. Then how come 20,000 people came to listen to him (Modi)? It seems he took along many with him," he said.
Calling it as a "fascinating claim", Mr Jaitley said, "I can understand the plight of Salman and his party colleagues particularly when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets a larger crowd in Sydney than what Salman's leader gets in India."
However, he refrained from naming either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi.
Mr Modi is on a three-nation tour that started with Myanmar where also he addressed Indians. Mr Khurshid's expression of doubts over the genuineness of public gatherings for Mr Modi abroad came ahead of the Prime Minister's address to Indian diaspora in Sydney, Australia.
Making light of Mr Modi's Madison Square Garden event in September, Mr Khurshid said, "In USA, organising 20,000 people and making them shout slogans is not a big deal."
He said that, "Taking Indians (abroad) and addressing NRIs, will not help... India will benefit if he (Modi) influences American leaders and American people... here (in India) he has already influenced people."
