U'khand: After Cong & Sena, is Shivraj Modi's new foe?

Bhopal, July 2: After the Congress, and NDA ally Shiv Sena, it seems Gujarat Chief Minister Narendrta Modi is drawing flak from his own party. The suspicion grew strong after Modi's Madhya Pradesh counterpart Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted on Monday that "apart from rescuing pilgrims from MP, our rescue teams have rescued 1,810 pilgrims from various states without any discrimination".

The remark seemed to be a dig at Modi over reports that he had rescued 15,000 Gujaratis from the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand within a few hours. The Congress capitalised on the reports and slammed the Gujarat CM for his 'Rambo' act although the BJP kept denying that Modi had never made such claim.

Observers felt that the Congress took up the issue to counter claims that its own government at the Centre had wanted to stop Modi's visit to the state, citing inconvenience caused to the relief operations as a result of visits made by the VIPs. That, however, did not stop its own vice-president Rahul Gandhi from visiting the state, albeit more than a week later.

Modi also faced criticism from the Sena for allegedly creating division while rescuing people from Uttarakhand. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had expressed strong reservation over the idea of rescuing only Gujaratis.

Chouhan further capitalised on this point by posting another tweet: "MP choppers rescued 292 pilgrims from MP and 247 from other states as well".

The MP chief minister, who was praised by veteran BJP leader L K Advani recently and which was seen by many as a counter-strategy against Modi's progress, also said on Modi's offer to renovate the Kedarnath shrine that rescuing the alive people should be the foremost concern.

Chouhan had sent a team under a senior minister to coordinate rescue operations from Haridwar.

OneIndia News