P Chidambaram belittled middle-class: Modi

Needling P Chidambaram in his home turf, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dubbed him as “recounting minister” who thinks all the wisdom in the world is bestowed only upon him and “belittled the middle class” during his tenure as Union Finance Minister during the UPA rule.

Addressing a public meeting in Tiruppur in the Kongu belt, Modi targeted Chidambaram and his son saying after family packages in mobile recharge people are queuing up before courts for “family bail package” – the father-son duo are fighting a slew of court cases and appearing before investigating agencies.

“There was a recounting minister in UPA from Tamil Nadu. This minister thinks all the wisdom in the world is bestowed only upon him. During his tenure as Finance Minister, he said why does the middle class keep talking about taxes when they have expensive ice creams and mineral water,” Modi said, without naming Chidambaram.

He criticised Chidambaram while referring to his government’s initiatives in making life easy for middle-class.

“Recounting minister” is a term coined by Opposition parties to target Chidambaram, who won the Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat in 2009 by a slender margin after recounting of votes polled. Former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had used the term quite often to take a dig at Chidambaram and had even accused him of “committing a fraud on the nation.”

Modi’s attack against Chidambaram is significant since he devoted a few minutes of speech at the Tamil Nadu city, which is known for the knitwear industry. Chidambaram has been at the forefront of criticising the NDA Government on economic and political issues on Twitter and at public forums.

Also, taking at a dig at Chidambaram and his son Karti, the Prime Minister said the father-son duo have been seeking bails in various cases a package.

During his 43-minute speech including the time taken to translate his speech from English into Tamil, the Prime Minister accused the Congress of indulging in scams from “skies to the seas” and interested in only protecting the middlemen rather than concentrating on strengthening India’s defence preparedness.

However, he remained mum on Rafale deal, where the Congress has smelled a scam and made it an election issue. The PM also did not attack the DMK in his speech.

He also dubbed Opposition’s Grand Alliance as a “club of rich people” just interested in promoting their ideologies. “They say that Modi will not win the elections and he is scared, but why are they coming together against me? Can they answer the questions? They have no answers for any questions and their only answer is Modi,” he said.

The Prime Minister also invoked veteran Congress leader K Kamaraj, saying the NDA administration was functioning the same way the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister would have wanted any government to function.