PM Modi targets Congress for `forgetting` Kartarpur in Pakistan during partition

PM Narendra Modi says Congress leaders have lacked vision.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that Congress leaders during the partition of 1947 lacked vision and it is because of this that Kartarpur remained in Pakistan.

Speaking at an election rally in poll-bound Rajasthan's Hanumangarh, PM Modi asked why Congress had not done anything to ensure Sikh pilgrims could visit Kartarpur Sahib. "Why did Congress not remember in 1947 that Kartarpur should be in India? Why was nothing done in 70 years? If the (Kartarpur) corridor is being made, the credit does not go to Mod but it goes to your votes," he said.

India and Pakistan recently agreed to open the Kartarpur corridor which would allow Sikh pilgrims to visit the historic site of religious relevance. PM Modi said this area should could have been in India if only Congress leaders of the past had shown vision. "Correcting the mistakes of Congress was my destiny," he said.

PM Modi has repeatedly taken on the current and past leadership of Congress - blaming the party for decades of misrule. At the same time, he has tried to establish himself as an able leader who is sensitive to the needs of the common man in Rajasthan and elsewhere. "Had Sardar Patel been the first Prime Minister of India, the condition of farmers and poor people in the country would not have deteriorated to such an extent. The four generations of one family have no knowledge about farming and about the plight of the farmers."

The BJP is looking to retain power in the state of Rajasthan where elections would be held on December 7. The Congress, however, is optimistic of upstaging the incumbent Vasundhara Raje government.