With Indian prime minister Narendra Modi making frequent visits to his home state Gujarat which is due to go to polls in December and inaugurating or dedicating a series of projects, the opposition has decided to take him on for allegedly showering his own state with blessings.
KT Rama Rao, a frontline minister of the southern state of Telangana and the son of its chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, has taken a dig at Modi over projects worth Rs 80,000 crore (£8.8 billion) that he had inaugurated in the poll-bound state where his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power for more than two decades.
In a tweet, Rao, who belongs to Bharath Rashtra Samithi, the party which recently changed its name from Telangana Rashtra Samithi to give it a national outlook ahead of the state polls of 2023 and national polls of 2024, asked, "Is this Democracy or Modicracy or plain Hypocrisy? For Gujarat, To Gujarat by the PM of Gujarat It is NOT “Revdi” if it is meant for Gujarat"
The mention of 'revdi' was a jab at the prime minister who has in recent times slammed the 'revdi culture' (practice of giving freebies) which is widely prevalent in Indian politics. Modi cautioned people against the 'revdi culture' under which votes are sought in exchange of free electoral freebies and it saw sharp reactions from his opponent parties, such as the Aam Aadmi Party which rules states such as Delhi and Punjab, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam which is in power in Tamil Nadu.
According to the opponents, there is a difference between freebies and social welfare schemes.
Rao also posted in his tweet an article from the National Herald newspaper headlined 'It’s Raining ‘Revdi’ in Gujarat' which listed the projects that Modi has inaugurated in Gujarat between April and September, excluding similar ones that have been flagged off by Indian home minister Amit Shah, who also belongs to Gujarat, and the state's chief minister, Bhupendra Patel, during the same period.
Rao, who is also called KTR, asked whether the schemes dedicated to the people of Gujarat are freebies or not.
The various schemes include: a five-star hotel to be built atop the re-developed railway station in state capital Gandhinagar; projects worth Rs 29,000 crore (£3.1 billion) unveiled by Modi last month, including the world's first CNG ( compressed natural gas) terminal in Bhavnagar; metro railway Phase-1 in Ahmedabad and Phase-1 of DREAM city in Surat, known for its diamond industry.
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