Donald Trump's Guj visit: Maharashtra Congress attacks Modi over wall along slum

The Maharashtra Congress on Monday said the BJP government's decision to build a wall to keep a slum out of sight during US President Donald Trump's visit to that state on February 24 was 'inhumane'.

The 500 metre long and four feet tall wall is being built in Ahmedabad's Sardarnagar, which has several slum structures, and is situated along a road that leads to the Indira bridge on the outskirts of the city from the airport, a route likely to be taken by Trump's motorcade.

"It is an inhumane act of construction of the wall to hide slums on Trump's route to the stadium from the airport (in Ahmedabad). The Congress condemns such acts," said Sachin Sawant, general secretary of Maharashtra Congress.

He said the wall also showed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claims of progress made by Gujarat during his chief ministership were false.

"If he had done any vikas in the state, the slum would not have been there. There are poor people in the US as well. If the US president sees some poverty here, will the skies fall," he asked.

Modi, in order to get sympathy, himself never shied away from claiming that he came from a deprived background, then "why is he now ashamed of the poor and slum dwellers".