Gogoi slams Modi for criticising predecessor

New Delhi, Jan 22: Virtually bringing the campaign for the upcoming Assam assembly elections to the heart of the tiol capital, state Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister rendra Modi for criticising his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

"I have never seen any prime minister criticising his predecessors," Gogoi said while addressing the media here. "Manmohan Singh did not and not even (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee," he said.

Launching the Bharatiya Jata Party's election campaign at Kokrajhar in Assam on Tuesday, Modi said that Assam sent Manmohan Singh as prime minister for 10 years and the state has been having a Congress government for 15 years but still there were a number of problems.

If a state has sent a prime minister for 10 years, then it should have been free of all problems, he said.

Elections for the 126-member Assam assembly are expected to be held in April-May.

On Friday, Gogoi said that Modi has become "shaky" ahead of the elections and that was why he was blaming Manmohan Singh.

"You have also been chief minister of Gujarat for 15 years. Are all problems (in Gujarat) solved?" the Assam chief minister posed.

He said that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Gujarat were sick, farmers were unhappy and the BJP lost the local government polls there.

Gogoi said that before becoming the prime minister, Modi raised high hopes and people too had high expectations from him.

"But instead of concentrating on interl problems, he started concentrating on foreign affairs," Gogoi said.

"Modi enjoys the company of NRIs and CEOs more than his own people."

Referring to Modi's charge that Manmohan Singh did nothing for Assam, Gogoi said the foundation of the Indian Institute of Information Techonlogy (IIIT) that the prime minister laid in Guwahati earlier this week was actually a gift of Manmohan Singh.

"Now he is going to the gas cracker project. It's the biggest PSU in the northeast and is a gift from Manmohan Singh. And he (Modi) is asking what has Manmohan Singh done," the chief minister said.

He said that the central government has been asking from the state government a white paper on its work in the last 15 years but all major indicators showed the state was developing on all fronts.

"Modi himself gave an award to my agriculture ministry," he said.