Varanasi: Senior Samajwadi Party leader and UP Cabinet Minister Azam Khan on Tuesday claimed it was he and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was carrying out development work in the temple town.
Khan, while inaugurating the storm water drainage project to replace 100-year-old drainage system with a new one and other projects for the city, said "the development work here was not being carried out by the man with a stubble (Modi) but by a topiwala (Khan). (Choti dharhi wala nahi, Topi wala kar raha hai Vikas)."
Khan also alleged that Modi had not given a single penny to the state government since he was elected as a Member of Parliament from this temple city.
"When he will visit here after two days, he may announce a host of schemes worth crores of rupees, but had not given a single penny for the development here," Khan said, adding that he had betrayed the people by making lofty promises, which he was unable to fulfill.
"You (Modi) are worried about my missing buffaloes, I ask you where are those Rs 15-20 lakh which you said would be transferred into peoples' account, why there is no 24-hour power supply when you had said so, you said youths would get jobs. You only betrayed the poor people of this country, you made the lofty promises to woo votes, not to fulfill them," he said.
Khan also dared Modi to announce a complete ban on sale and consumption of beef in the country during his visit here on September 18.
He said nearly 80 per cent of beef export business is held by a firm, whose owner is a Jain, adding will the PM announce a ban on this firm.
It's an irony that you would allow the sale of beef in the menu of five-star hotels (restaurants), but ban it elsewhere, he added.
Speaking about protests by Shikshamitras, Khan said they should not lose hope as the SP-led UP government will join them on the street and take the matter to Supreme court and fight for the justice.
Taking at dig at Modi's foreign visits, Khan said, Modi is not just the leader of this country but has now even become an international leader as he toured so many countries in the past one year and gained the fame internationally.
