Whenever Sonia targets us, people come to support Modi: Smriti

Hitting back at Sonia Gandhi over her "hawa baazi" (hot air) remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday said the Congress president's comments as always would help the government.

"Whenever Sonia Gandhi targets us, people of India come to support Prime Minister Modi," Irani said here at a press conference.

"People who accuse us of 'hawa baazi' had told soldiers that 'One Rank One Pension' cannot be implemented due to financial constraints. But it was Modi who turned their 'hawa baazi' into reality," she added.

Gandhi, while addressing a Congress Working Committee meeting on Tuesday, said the government has failed abysmally to match its words with deeds and that Modi's electoral promises were nothing more than "hawa baazi".

Irani said Gandhi's remark about Modi indicated their own failures and their desire to hide them.

"The Congress president took the help of the prime minister to guide her failed organisation in order to hide the failure of the policies of a failed organisational leadership," Irani said.

Irani also took a jibe at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

"Those Congress leaders fighting for farmers' causes forget that in Rahul Gandhi's constituency, farmers' lands were usurped," she said.

Taking a dig at the government's U-turn on the land bill, the Congress president said: "The U-turn on the land bill is evidence that the Narendra Modi government is out of touch with the ground realities.

"It has become painfully clear that most of the pledges made by the prime minister during his election campaigns are nothing more than 'hawa baazi'."