Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday spoke for nearly 100 minutes in the Lok Sabha to list his government’s achievements and appeared to taunt leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, saying those who do “photo sessions in huts of the poor for their entertainment will find discussions in Parliament about the impoverished boring”.

Modi’s reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address to Parliament was silent on the stampede deaths at the Mahakumbh where he is to take the holy dip on Wednesday when Delhi goes to polls.

The President’s address at the start of the budget session was termed “boring” and “repetitive” by Rahul on Monday.

Speaking a day after Rahul had spoken in the Lok Sabha, Modi sought to respond to most of the issues raised by the Congress leader but skipped the two most important ones — the failure of the Make in India initiative and the Chinese occupation of Indian territory.

Rahul had on Monday told the House that Make in India was a “good idea” but it had failed to tackle unemployment. He claimed that India’s failure on the production front had given China the lead and an opportunity to occupy Indian territory.

The Prime Minister kicked off his speech by listing his government’s initiatives for the poor before moving on to taking swipes at Rahul and his family members without naming them. He said “garibi hatao” was just a slogan for the previous governments.

“Those who have lived difficult lives can only understand the value of a house and a toilet.... We have worked so much for the poor and it’s because of this that the President also mentioned this in her speech,” he said, patting himself on the back for building thousands of houses and toilets.

Rahul had said the President’s address to Parliament was “repetitive” as it presented “the same laundry list of things the government has done”.

Modi said the remarks had “humiliated” the President. “A woman President is being humiliated. I can understand the political frustration. But what is the reason for insulting the President?” he said, claiming that India was moving ahead with the mantra of women-led development.

Modi sought to contradict Rahul’s accusation that the government had failed to address the problem of unemployment. He claimed that his government had opened up the space, defence and semiconductor sectors, built a start-up ecosystem and was focusing on skilling youths.

“In this budget, we have opened up the nuclear energy sector and its long-term positive impacts and results will be visible to the country in the future. We have established 10,000 tinkering labs in schools and today children from these labs are surprising everyone with their robotics innovations. In this budget, provisions have been made for 50,000 new tinkering labs to further enhance innovation and creativity among students,” Modi said.

“For India, there is not a single AI, there is double AI, which is the double strength. The first AI is artificial intelligence and the second AI is an aspirational India,” he said.

Rahul had on Saturday said every piece of data that came out of the production system in the world was owned by China and that the claim of “Make in India” was an empty boast as only assembling was being done in the country.

Responding to Rahul’s allegation that the BJP doesn’t respect the spirit of the Constitution, Modi said: “Some leaders speak the language of urban Naxals, talk of waging war against the Indian State, they cannot understand the Constitution.”

Addressing the issue of caste census raised by Rahul, Modi said that for “some people speaking about caste is a fashion” and underscored how his government had granted constitutional status to the OBC commission, which the Congress had failed to do. He accused the Congress of resorting to dynastic politics even in getting people from the SC and ST communities elected.

Seeking to hit back at Rahul for claiming that foreign minister S. Jaishankar had visited the US to lobby to get Modi invited to Trump’s swearing-in, the Prime Minister said: “Some people feel they are not mature enough if they don’t talk about foreign policy, even at the cost of the nation. They should read JFK’s Forgotten Crisis, which deals in detail about Pandit Nehru’s meetings with John F. Kennedy and what all games were played in the name of foreign policy.”