'I was shocked': PM Modi slams Rahul Gandhi over 'Fisheries Ministry' remark

New Delhi, Feb 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, over his remarks on creating a fisheries ministry at the Centre.

Modi also expressed 'shock' over Gandhi's statement that there was no 'dedicated' fisheries ministry at the Centre, adding the NDA government had set it up in 2019 and that its budgetary allocation has substantially gone up ever since.

"I was absolutely shocked to hear a Congress leader come and say they want to start a fisheries ministry because there is none. The truth is that it already exists. The current NDA government has already set up a fisheries ministry back in 2019 itself," PM Modi said today.

Hitting out at the "Congress culture," at a public meeting in the poll-bound union territory, he said people were witness to it in the last five years.

"Our colonial rulers had the policy of divide and rule. Congress has a policy of divide, lie and rule. Sometimes their leaders put region against region... community against community," he said in an apparent reference to Gandhi's recent 'north-south' remarks which the BJP opposed strongly.

During his Kerala visit on Tuesday, Gandhi had said he was used to a "different type of politics" in north India and coming to the southern state was "very refreshing" as people are interested in "issues".

Averring that the people of Puducherry did not deserve a "high command" government that would serve a few Congress leaders, Modi assured that the NDA government, if voted in the coming elections, would treat people as its high command.