Modi's Kyoto-like Kashi plan still a distant dream, says Murli Manohar Joshi

Varanasi, May 5: Hitting out at Centre's ambitious plans over developing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Parliamentary constituency Varanasi on the lines of Japan's Kyoto, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said first of all the city's infrastructure needs to be developed.

As per a report published in India Today, the BJP veteran said, "I am not against the development of Varanasi on the lines of Tokyo and Kyoto, but there is need for infrastructural development before going ahead on that path."

Speaking at a seminar organised in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Sunday evening Joshi, BJP MP from Kanpur, asked, "Do we want a city standing on a pile of garbage?"

Referring to another of Modi's mega plans, the lecturer turned politician said: "I am also not against running bullet trains, but first we need to have the basic transportation facilities."

A multi-disciplinary team of the Union urban development ministry and officials of Varanasi had recently visited Tokyo and Kyoto to study the model of development in the cities and chalk out similar plans for the holy city.

Murli Manohar Joshi was recently removed from the party's Parliamentary Board and instead was made a part of 'the Margdarshak Mandal' along with other senior leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani.

Differences between Joshi and the Modi-led BJP emerged when when he was forced to change his constituency from Varansi to Kanpur, to make way for Modi to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Joshi's statement comes days after another senior BJP leader Arun Shourie criticised the NDA government's policies.

Shourie, a BJP minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet, on Friday, May 1 hit out at the Modi government, saying its economic policy was "directionless" while the social climate was causing "great anxiety" among the minorities.

The 73-year-old journalist-turned politician said the one-year rule of Modi was "good in parts", his transformation as prime minister was good in foreign policy, but the promised turnaround in economy has not happened.

OneIndia News