Even as he drew laughs and cheers from expatriates at Toronto’s Ricoh Colliseum, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raked up a controversy in India for referring to the previous UPA government as “scam-tainted.”
Congress party spokesperson Anand Sharma accused the PM of “poor taste” for saying his predecessors had left behind a “mess” that he was starting to “clean up.” “He is talking on foreign soil to malign his predecessors and the present opposition. No Prime Minister of India in its history has ever done so,” said Mr. Sharma, even as other leaders of the UPA termed the remarks as “objectionable.”
In the earlier leg of his current foreign tour, Mr. Modi had said at an Indian community reception in Berlin that the UPA government had “given away” coal block allocations like “a pen or a handkerchief.”The PM’s remarks came in for criticism from some former diplomats as well.
“It is not just convention for a Prime Minister not to bring up political differences while abroad, it is also convention for the opposition leadership not to criticise the government when abroad,” said former Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar, adding: “In that sense, Mr Modi is out of line, and also out of line with his party leaders like Mr. [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee and Mr. [L.K.] Advani.”
He also recalled that in earlier times Opposition leaders like Mr. Vajpayee had even been deputed by the Narasimha Rao government to defend India’s position at the U.N.
“Abroad, Indian policy is to be united, whatever the differences domestically are,” he said.
“I am not sure if this is the first time such remarks have been made, but they were certainly not made in the past 10 years,” said a former U.N. diplomat. However, a former Indian High Commissioner pointed out that while Mr. Modi’s remarks were a break from protocol, they weren’t made to a foreign audience.
“In both cases he was speaking to members of the Indian community, who are an extension of the country, and hence aware of domestic politics,” she said.
Mr. Modi’s comments, in which he said that the last 10 months of his government had brought about a change in attitude towards India, were made at an event in Toronto’s Ricoh Colliseum for Indian-Canadians.
