Narendra Modi prisoner of his image, says Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, addressing a Congress Parliamentary Party meeting in Parliament on Friday, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of practicing TRP politics.

“The Congress never gave India a PM who was a prisoner of his own image. We never gave India a PM who was ready to inflict tremendous suffering on the people of India to protect his own persona. We never gave India a PM who based his entire policy-making strategy on TRP,” said the Congress leader.

Mr Gandhi also criticised the government over its Pakistan policy. “It is the same person who, when he was in Opposition, ridiculed the UPA’s policy of isolating Pakistan, which brought peace to Kashmir,” he said, adding that today, the same man sits silently while Kashmir is burning. “Narendra Modi will be judged by history as a man who gifted massive political space to anti-India forces by creating an opportunistic political alliance between the BJP and PDP. He has created the political vacuum that gives the terrorists space to operate.”

Mr Gandhi has been leading the charge against the government in the current Parliament session. Earlier, he visited ATMs in Delhi to take stock of the situation prevailing across the city.

Hitting back, the BJP said the Congress government was responsible for policy paralysis while the BJP government has freed the country of its “prison” and ushered in social security by curbing corruption and black money.

Trying to turn the tables on the Congress V-P over his accusation of the TRP politics, BJP’s Shrikant Sharma said in reality, these are his own attributes as it was he who did “photo-op” politics and even rejected his own government's decision, a sign of his arrogance.

He said Mr Gandhi was “bitter” due to successive defeats his party suffered in the recent polls.