Chennai: Narendra Modi yesterday launched a blistering attack on Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who had questioned his knowledge of economy, saying under his stewardship the country's economy has plunged to new depths in growth.
Taunting him repeatedly as “Recount Minister”(a reference to his 2009 poll victory in the recount), the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate said India under him and noted economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has registered high unemployment, fiscal debt and low growth.
“Going to Harvard means nothing. What matters is hard work....A man who has just studied in an ordinary school, sold tea and has not even seen the doors of Harvard has shown what it takes to handle economy.
“Gujarat has shown an average growth of 10.1 percent for the last ten years while the national average has been 7.6 under UPA and it has fallen to 4.5 in the last two years,” he said.
Modi was severe on Chidambaram who had recently said in Davos that Modi's knowledge of economy can be written on the back of a postage stamp.
“The Recount Minister has been using foul language against me for quite sometime now. I have been maintaining silence because the more mud you throw, lotus will blossom all the more,” he said.
Chidambaram, he said, is so arrogant that he thinks that he is the repository of all knowledge.
“He behaves as if he was the first in the queue when God was distributing intelligence,” Modi said.
