On Sonia turf, Modi slams Congress: No Quattrocchi uncle in BJP govt deals

Gifts projects worth Rs 10 billion, announces global upgrading of rail coach factory

In his maiden visit to Rae Bareli as the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on Sunday tore into the Congress on Sonia Gandhi's home turf, saying the party was “agitated” and telling lies as there was no “Quattrocchi uncle” or Christian Michel in the BJP government's defence deals and slammed it for trying to create “distrust” against the judiciary.

This was the Prime Minister's first public comments after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the BJP government in the Rafale deal.

Modi said the earlier regimes were marred by kickbacks in defence deals. 

Referring to the AgustaWestland chopper case, Modi said, “We have brought one uncle Christian Michel to India a few days back.”

 

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Modi announced development and infrastructure projects worth more than Rs 10 billion to the constituency. Modi also announced that the local railway Modern Coach Factory (MCF) would be upgraded to the global standard in near future.

“From 2010 to 2014, the unit was utilising only 3 per cent of its machines and the plant was painting railway coaches brought here from the Kapurthala unit,” Modi said at a public meeting after laying the foundation of developmental projects worth over Rs 10 billion, including a 125-km highway worth Rs 5.5 billion. 

He said during the previous regime, the unit was procuring goods worth only Rs 10 million annually from local businessmen. However, this year alone the local procurement had touched almost Rs 1.25 billion.

“Since the plant capacity is being expanded, the local procurement would further go up and more jobs would be created,” the PM said in the presence of UP Governor Ram Naik, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, railways minister Piyush Goyal among others.

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Modi also flagged off the 900th railway coach manufactured at the MCF. He said the day was not far when 10-12 coaches would be manufactured daily at the plant and said in the next 2-3 years, it would attain annual production capacity of more than 3,000 and ultimately touch 5,000 coaches annually.
 

He further said a Rail Industrial Park had been proposed in Rae Bareli, which would directly benefit the local MSMEs.

With inputs from PTI