Today it was Modi’t turn to reply Chidambaram

Gandhinagar, 19 February 2014

Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi took a dig at Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s Vote on Account speech, and asked what hard work has the FM done.

Addressing a National Summit on ‘Financial Services – A key driver for economic growth’ in Gandhinagar on Wednesday, Modi said,”Our Finance Minister said that he is a hard worker. Yesterday i realised how hardworking our Finance Minister is, when they decided to levy service tax on my speeches. Now I knew what this hard work was about. Nation has already seen the picture in the Vote-on-Account.”

Modi’s remarks came after he was served notice by central government’s Excise department over payment of Service tax for his rallies. The notice was later withdrawn.

Modi’s remark was also in reference to Chidambaram’s earlier comment of being a hard worker while presenting the Vote-on-Account in Parliament two days back.

Modi in his speech further stressed on the need to develop modern infrastructure and inclusive financial sector and said,”We need to create most modern urban infrastructure and world class cities. We need to focus on skilled manpower. We have to export both our labour and talent. Till we do not do that we cannot compete. We have tried to develop cities with special characteristics. That is how we can create most modern cities-like business city. Infrastructure, technology and human resource are the key things which can be used to develop our nation. But the driving force is financial institutions. We need to give importance to inclusive financial sector for growth. Infrastructure is the key factor for development.”

“Creating job is a challenge. China is trying to capture the job market. Our focus is job creation, human skill development. Our Tourism sector is the fastest growing sector. Our developmental model is low end. Our aim is to make high end developmental model to compete with the rest of the world,” Modi further added.