Jaitley slams Khurshid for questioning crowd at PM meetings

Khurshid had expressed doubts over the genuineness of the big gathering of the people at Nay Pyi Taw

Attacking Congress leader Salman Khurshid for questioning the genuineness of crowd during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trips abroad, Union Minister Arun Jaitley today said his plight was understandable as Modi had a larger audience in Sydney than his leader got in India.

"If UPA leaders during their days in government left the expatriate Indian population underwhelmed, is it to be presumed that this should be true for others?

"I can understand the plight of Salman and his party colleagues particularly when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets a larger crowd in Sydney than what Salman's leader gets in India," the BJP leader said in a statement soon after Modi addressed a large diaspora gathering in the Australian city.

Khurshid, a former External Affairs Minister, had expressed doubts over the genuineness of the big gathering of the people of Indian origin who had turned up to meet Modi at Myanmar's capital Nay Pyi Taw.

"I have been to Nay Pyi Taw twice. No one is found on the streets there. Then how come 20,000 people came to listen to him (Modi). He must have taken along many with him," Khurshid had told reporters in Farukhabad in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.