Congress-BJP spar over Modi's Teachers' Day address

The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday sparred on the scheduled Teachers' Day address of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to school children across the country Friday.

Senior Congress leader and party general secretary Madhusudan Mistry charged Modi with trying to "brainwash children" through this address.

"What is the need for the young children to listen to the prime minister," Mistry said here.

Reacting sharply to the statement of the Congress leader, BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said the entire Congress party had lost "sense of balance and decorum" and was targeting the prime minister out of sheer frustration.

"Even before Modi-ji has spoken, the Congress has concluded that it is going to be a political speech," he said adding that Congress leaders should understand that Narendra Modi was prime minister and had every right to interact with children, who are future of the country.

Alleging bias against Modi, the BJP leader further said the grand old party of India should rather sit back and introspect on what led to its worst ever electoral performance so much so that it also lost the right to be the principal opposition party in the Lok Sabha.

He also alleged that the Congress was not ready to accept the giant strides that India was making under the BJP-led NDA government which in the first 100 days had made serious efforts to bring back the economy on tracks and had initiated good governance.

Directives have been issued by the union HRD ministry to all schools, private and government, to ensure that the prime minister's speech is listened to by school children through arrangements made on television, Internet and radio though attendance of students is not mandatory.