Jairam Ramesh (left) and Sachin Pilot at the programme to observe the birth anniversary of Shri Krishna Singh in Patna on Monday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

The Congress brass on Monday used Bihar’s first chief minister Shri Krishna Singh’s birth anniversary to train their guns at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for tom-toming the Gujarat growth story under his stewardship.

They did not choose Nitish Kumar for any special appreciation either. But they were quite explicit in questioning Modi’s tall claims about the development of Gujarat that the latter has been making in his rallies.

“It is not a matter of happiness that Gujarat, which produced great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, is lagging behind on the growth pedestal but the statistics released by RBI on September 26 suggests so. The report placed Gujarat at the 12th position out of 28 states. This shows that the Gujarat chief minister has been making a false claim,” said All India Congress Committee general secretary Shakeel Ahmad.

To buttress his point, Ahmad said Gujarat has not found place in top 10 performing states in the field of education, health, infrastructure and per capita income. The western state has been placed at the 14th rank in education, 17th in health, 11th in infrastructure, while on per capita indicator, it ranked 10th, he added.

He said that RBI’s report has put the two BJP-ruled states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh at the 25th and 26th positions respectively.

Ahmad appreciated Bihar Congress chief Ashok Choudhary and the anniversary programme organiser, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, for organising such a big programme in the open field.

He appealed to youths, especially the educated ones, to join politics instead of going after assured careers. Shri Babu, the name by which Shri Krishna Singh was popularly known, played a pivotal role in promoting youths in politics and now Rahul Gandhi is giving the opportunity to the youths.

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, the chief guest of the function, too made a veiled attack on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief Nitish Kumar for claiming to be the champions of development.

“Some chief ministers talk and claim about achieving development but their claims are false. Some even call themselves ‘Vikash Purush’. A chief minister says that what Bihar thinks today, the nation follows it tomorrow. Many chief ministers claim about the development but no chief minister stands anywhere near Shri Babu,” Ramesh said with naming anyone.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar also paid floral tributes to the statue of Shri Krishna Singh at the main secretariat.