BJP president Amit Shah said on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his three years in office has visited fewer foreign nations than his predecessor Manmohan Singh.
In an interaction with elected local body representatives in Panaji, the BJP chief said he was surprised as to why people think otherwise.
Shah said a BJP worker explained the reason behind this to him. “A party worker told me that when Manmohan Singh used to go abroad, nobody knew,” he said.
Criticizing Singh, Shah said that the former prime minister used to read out from written speeches on his foreign tours. “He carried pages written in English and come back after reading them. Sometimes he read in Thailand the pages meant to be read in Malaysia and vice-versa,” he claimed.
Comparing the impact of Singh’s overseas visits to that of Prime Minister Modi’s, Shah said that during Manmohan Singh’s tenure, the world never knew whether the then Indian Prime Minister went to China, the USA or Russia. “But now when Modiji goes to China, America, Russia, France, Japan, Sri Lanka… thousands of people gather at airports to receive him and the entire world knows when the Indian PM is traveling,” he said.
(Feature image source: PTI)