Modi meets & greets rich only: Priyanka

Ayodhya/Rae Bareli: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he "only meets and greets the rich" and has no time to meet people from villages.

Priyanka Gandhi said this as she huddled with a group of women under the scorching sun in Uttar Pradesh's Atka village and Naua Kuan in Faziabad district.

Addressing the party workers, the AICC Uttar Pradesh (East) in-charge said: "I asked people if development happened in your villages and they replied that a 15-km road has been made.

"I asked them when was the road approved and the people said it was approved under the Congress government but 15 km of road has been made for publicity," she said.

The Congress leader then said that when she asked the people if Modiji came to your villages, they replied "not even once in the last five years as he remains busy in doing publicity".

Targeting the Prime Minister over his foreign trips, she said: "He goes to foreign lands and hugs the people there. But he does not hug the poor in India."

Referring to Modi's comment that the Congress' speeches are being applauded in Pakistan, Priyanka Gandhi reminded him of the 'biryani' served by then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore in 2015.

"Pakistan me biryani khaane ke liye toh wohi gaye the na (But it was he who went to have biryani in Pakistan), Priyanka said when asked about Modi's remarks.

The Congress leader lambasted the Modi government for questioning the Nyuntam Aay Yojana or Nyay (minimum income guarantee scheme) announced by party president Rahul Gandhi and said the BJP says they do not have enough money to pay the people.

"The government has waived off the loans of several industrialists but they don't have money for the people of the country.

"This government wants to snatch poor people's employment. But the Congress through Nyay scheme will give Rs 72,000 to each poor family," she said. Not sparing BJP President Amit Shah, she called the saffron party's 2014 promise of giving Rs 15 lakh to every citizen as "rhetoric".

Priyanka said it was the Congress which had brought people-friendly schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to give employment to people across the country. Earlier in the day, while on her way from Rae Bareli to Faizabad, Gandhi made brief halted at several places.

She met women workers and also paid obeisance at Materva Mazaar in Amethi. The 47-year-old became nostalgic when a Muslim family reminded her of her grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's visit to the village in the 1980s.