Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party election campaign committee chief and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claiming that the latter spoke "blatant lies".
"I strongly condemn Modi's criticism of the Prime Minister, the Central government and the Congress party. He should know that Indo-Pak border issues are very sensitive and should only be dealt with diplomatically," Reddy said, referring to Modi's critical remarks about the policy being adopted towards Pakistan.
The Andhra Pradesh CM told reporters in Hyderabad on Monday night that any issue between the two countries should be resolved through diplomatic means and any provocation was unwarranted. "It's not right to create a war situation. All countries have modern weapons these days. When it comes to issues related to other countries, we all should work together," he said.
As Gujarat's Chief Minister, Modi could give relevant suggestions to the Centre, he said. Mocking Modi's claims about implementation of welfare schemes in states ruled by the BJP and its allies, Reddy claimed that no other state did it better than Andhra Pradesh.
"Nobody has been showing us the way in this regard, rather we are showing the way to others," Kiran claimed, referring to his pet girl child protection scheme called 'Bangaru Talli' in particular.
"No doubt, the Ladli Lakshmi Yojana being implemented in Madhya Pradesh is good, but we have enacted a law for effective implementation of Bangaru Talli. We introduced the scheme after studying similar ones being implemented in other states and also foreign countries. Ours is the best scheme," he claimed.
"Modi spoke about skill development. It's ridiculous. In Gujarat, skill development training was given to only 52,000 youths in the last two years, but no employment was provided. In contrast, 3.25 lakh youth in Andhra Pradesh were trained and provided jobs in the private sector."
"This year, we made a budgetary provision of Rs 415 crore for skill development with a target to provide employment for 3.50 lakh youth. Gujarat's budgetary allocation is only Rs 106 crore for 55,000 youth, without providing employment," Kiran said.
When a team of officials from Andhra Pradesh visited Gujarat to study skill development programmes there, Modi invited them for a meeting and told them that "there's a lot to learn from Andhra Pradesh," he said.
"What Modi spoke at the public meeting here yesterday, despite fully knowing these facts, is regrettable," he said. About the public distribution scheme (PDS) which Modi said is "exemplary" in Chhattisgarh, Reddy said that 94 per cent of the Andhra Pradesh's population is covered and rice is being supplied at Re 1 per kilogram.
"In Gujarat, only 30 per cent of its population is covered under PDS and rice is supplied at Rs 3 per kg and in Chhattisgarh, only 63 per cent of its population is covered by the PDS. So, Andhra Pradesh is on the top," he said.
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