Courtesy: @PIB_India, File image)
Twitter erupted on Tuesday as Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government in a highly publicized speech at the University of California, Berkeley on September 11.
In response, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its supporters took to social media slamming Gandhi for what they saw as bad mouthing the country on foreign soil.
However, others were quick to point out that Modi had done the same in his trips abroad.
Many referred to the prime minister's speeches in 2015 in Shanghai and Seoul where they claim he said that he regretted being born in India.
On hearing Modi's speech given at Seoul in South Korea, it appears that his statements are being taken out of context.
Modi said his one year in office had given Indians living abroad several reasons to feel proud as compared to the past when they felt ashamed of being born Indian.
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“There was a time when people.... (don't know.... what sin did we commit in our past life?....we are born in India (audience laughs)... Is this a country? Is this any government?... What kind of people are these? Let's leave... ) And people used to leave.. Some years we also saw industrialists saying that we can't do business here. We can't live here.. And many people had put one leg out of the country already..."
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His comments in Seoul were a slight variation of his speech in Shanghai from the same foreign trip where he said international economic bodies such as IMF, World Bank had acknowledged India was growing at 7 percent and that a sense of pessimism had ended.
Even in 2015 Modi's comments from that trip were slammed back home. The hashtag #ModiinsultsIndia trended on Twitter at the time. - Modi's comments at past regime invite twitter backlash
The Bharatiya Janta party rattled by Rahul Gandhi's jibes fielded Union Minister Smriti Irani to take on Gandhi. Irani said Congress vice-president attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a foreign country was "deplorable."
Gandhi had attacked Modi and the BJP and said "The politics of hate divides and polarises India making millions of people feel that they have no future in their own country."
Gandhi also took potshots against Modi's economic policies saying 'demonetisation and hastily applied GST have caused tremendous damage.'