Cong mocks PM’s foreign trips, wants his name entered in Guinness Book

| JULY 12, 2018, 03:13 AM IST

the goan I network
PANAJI
Taking its sarcastic criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a new extreme, the Congress in Goa fired an unlikely pot-shot. The party has written to London-based Guinness World Records (GWR) to write the Prime Minister’s name in their book claiming that he has set a record for overseas travel.  
Congress general secretary Sankalp Amonkar told media persons in Panaji on Wednesday that he has sent a letter to Guinness World Records by registered post on Tuesday.  
Amonkar claimed to have obtained the information on the Prime Minister’s travels abroad from a party “sympathiser” in Bangalore who in turn got it through the Right to Information Act.  
Amonkar’s letter to the reputed London organisation which chronicles world records says that Modi has become a “role model” for India’s future generation through his 41 trips covering 52 countries and on which he spent Rs 355.30 crores.  
Breaking off from sarcasm mode at the news conference he addressed at the Congress’ Panaji headquarters, Amonkar hit out at the Modi-led central government’s record on the economic front.  
“The Indian rupee has fallen to Rs 69.03 against the US dollar,” he said while recalling that before coming to power Modi and the BJP were claiming that they would bring the value of the rupee at par with the dollar.  
“The Prime Minister has spent 167 days outside the country throughout his tenure,” Amonkar said, adding that no other head of government anywhere in the world must have made such a ridiculously high number of foreign trips.  
Decrying the complaints filed against Goa Congress Mahila chief Pratima Coutinho in the alleged case of making public the identity of a minor victim of molestation, Amonkar said it was a ‘pressure tactic’ being used by political opponents to deter the Mahila Congress workers from taking up issues.  
Another Congress leader, Vithal Morajkar also questioned the failure of the police to book an FIR against Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar following their complaint over his “prasad” threat to GPCC chief, Girish Chodankar.  
“The government should prove that it is unbiased in the matter of policing crime,” Morajkar said, while appealing to CM Manohar Parrikar to issue directions to the police to book the case. 
The Congress is claiming that the statement of Tendulkar, who is also the BJP state president, that it was time to give Chodankar ‘prasad’ was an instigation to party workers to cause physical harm to their president. They have filed police complaints in this regard. 

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