Does PM Modi know anything about history, asks Sibal

New Delhi, Nov 17: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's sharp attack at the Congress during a rally in pollbound Chhattisgarh yesterday has left the grand old party fuming. PM Modi had asked what the Congress had done for the country in last 50 odd years of its rule. Modi had said that his four-and-half-years of rule can be compared with decades of Congress rule.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal

Reacting strongly to this, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked if the Prime Minister knew history of India.

"I don't think PM ponders over what he says. I want to ask the PM who built the Hirakud dam, Sardar Sarovar dam, Tehri dam, Bhakra dam? The dada- dadi of Modi ji or his party? Does he know anything about the history of India? ..They were the ones who were collaborating with the British. In the 1942 Quit-India movement they sided with the British. That was the conduct of their dad-dadis and nana-nanis. Unfortunately he doesn't even know about his own dada-dadis, I wish he did," Sibal told ANI.

Prime Minister Modi

At the rally in Ambikapur in north Chhattisgarh, Modi had also attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi and asked him to give an account on the contributions of the four generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family to the nation. Modi had even asked if a leader from outside 'Gandhi-Nehru family' can become the Congress president.

Former union minister P Chidambaram

In response to this, former union minister P Chidambaram listed out names of Congress presidents who were not from the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Chidambaram asked the prime minister to now speak on the Rafale aircraft deal, unemployment and suicide of farmers during his rule. In an election rally in Chhattisgarh on Friday, Modi had asked the Congress to make a Congressman, from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family, president of the party for five years.

In a series of tweets, Chidambaram listed out the names and said the Congress was proud of the humble origins of its post-Independence leaders like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri, K Kamaraj and Manmohan Singh and many others besides thousands others during pre-Independence days.

Chidambaram listed out names of Congress presidents who were not from Gandhi family

"To jog PM Modi's memory: among the Congress Presidents since 1947 were Acharya Kripalani, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Purushottamdas Tandon, U N Dhebar, Sanjiva Reddy, Sanjivaiah, Kamaraj, Nijalingappa, C Subramanian, Jagjivan Ram, Shankar Dayal Sharma, D K Barooah, Brahmananda Reddy, P V Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri (sic)," he said.