Nehru-Gandhi family never intended to develop Amethi: Smriti Irani

In a veiled attack on Rahul Gandhi, Irani said, "You go around the world talking about development, look at your own constituency."

Highlighting the problems faced by the people in Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's Lok Sabha constituency Amethi, Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Congress. She said that Amethi has been a bastion of Nehru-Gandhi family, but still it continues to remain backward.

"The place which has been the constituency of three PMs is so backward...It has been a bastion of Nehru-Gandhi. People there are struggling even to get fertilizers," she told in an interview to DD News.

"There was no intention for development," she added.

In a veiled attack on Rahul Gandhi, Irani said, "You go around the world talking about development, look at your own constituency."

The Textile Minister said she met people of Amethi and they are very disappointed. Irani said she has assured them of help under BJP rule at the Centre and state.

"I am not working for votes," she added.

The minister also said that she got just 18 days to prepare for 2014 polls in which she contested against Rahul Gandhi.

"In those 18 days, I did remarkably well. Rahul Gandhi used to win by a margin of around 3 lakh votes, but that margin shrunk significantly. People in Amethi are looking for an alternative," she said.

She said people in Amethi have more expectations from her than from their elected representative Rahul Gandhi.

Irani, who is on a two-day tour in Amethi, said that due to its 'VVIP constituency' status everyone thinks that the area would have seen a huge surge in development over the decades, which was not the case.

The Textile minister along with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP president Amit Shah launched various developmental programmes for the region. The minister said that the area lacked basic amenities and struggled to meet pace with India in terms of basic needs.

OneIndia News