NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that while he has been visiting Tamil Nadu frequently in the last few weeks, he has "historically paid little attention" to the state.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh posed questions for the prime minister ahead of his visit to Tamil Nadu's Salem and Kerala's Palakkad on Tuesday.
"The prime minister is visiting Salem, Tamil Nadu and Palakkad, Kerala today. Some important questions that he must address: While the prime minister has been visiting Tamil Nadu frequently in the last few weeks, he has historically paid little attention to the state," Ramesh said.
For instance, he did not set foot there during the Cyclone Michaung crisis in December 2023, he claimed.
The chief minister of Tamil Nadu has repeatedly urged for the release of Rs 37,907 crore from the Modi government for rehabilitation and reconstruction after the cyclone, he noted.
Does the prime minister plan to fulfil this critical need of the people of Tamil Nadu, Ramesh asked.
"During Prime Minister Modi's visit to Salem, he will hopefully notice the numerous textile factories that have either shut down and disposed of machinery or reduced working hours for labourers," he said.
After having single-handedly destroyed India's MSME manufacturing capacities with demonetisation, GST, and the unplanned COVID-19 lockdown, what is the prime minister's vision to rescue these textile factories, Ramesh asked.
Prime Minister Modi will address a rally in Salem on Tuesday. Alliance party leaders, including PMK founder S Ramadoss, are likely to attend the public meeting.
The BJP has been focusing on the southern state, hoping to win as many of the 39 constituencies as part of its 'mission 400' seats in the coming polls.
On the PM's visit to Kerala, Ramesh said, "Kerala is the state that the prime minister had infamously compared to Somalia. Kerala's performance on development indicators has been consistently better than all Indian states.
"Will the prime minister finally apologise to the people of Kerala for his misleading commentary on the state," he asked.
Kerala is home to the Western Ghats, an extremely fragile but important ecosystem. In the last 10 years, under Modi's tutelage, there have been continuous assaults on its ecosystem, he alleged.
"The Modi government has diluted all environment and forest laws to help a few favoured corporates, and perhaps to repay the debts incurred for their purchase of the BJP's electoral bonds. Will the prime minister come clean on what his motivations were when he was diluting our environmental protection regime to favour his corporate friends?" Ramesh said and asked the PM to break his "silence" on these issues.