PM Narendra Modi​​​​​​​ helped industrialists, ignored government firms: Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that he has behaved like a "business development manager" and benefited industrialists while "sidelining" the government companies.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, the Punjab Minister said that during Modi's rule, industrialists got 18 major deals.

"The Prime Minister, in the last five years, made 55 foreign trips and during those trips he was accompanied by two prominent industrialists who got maximum business deals," alleged Sidhu, a former BJP MP who joined the Congress two years back.

In the last five years, the government companies, which were earlier making profit, have now become loss-making companies, the cricketer-turned-politician claimed.

"The government defence companies, which had experience of over 50 years, were not given any contracts," he charged, adding, "I want to ask the Prime Minister why he thought about welfare of only two companies while the government companies were left to die."

He said Modi had declared in 2014, when he became the Prime Minister, that he won't allow corruption but he now stood "exposed".