BJP campaign committee chief Narendra Modi’s remarks, pitting himself against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, drew a caustic response from Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajiv Shukla, who said the Gujarat leader was “full of arrogance”.
“I keep saying from day one that he is full of arrogance, full of himself. If this kind of a person gets higher in politics what he will do to the country one can understand,” Mr Shukla said.
The official Independence Day function in Gujarat is being held in Bhuj where Mr Modi will hoist the tricolour.
Attacking the Centre, Mr Modi asked: “It’s your turn to give your accounts... you will have to give account in 2014 of what you have done... and this country knows what you have done. It knows what you have done, for whom you have done and who has done. People also know how it has been done and how much it was done.”
“I want to tell them (the UPA) that Gujarat passed the test with distinction in December 2012 (when last Assembly polls were held). Those spreading canards against the state have been rejected,” the Gujarat chief minister said.