Anand: Prime Minister Modi on Monday singled out the first Prime Minster Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to blame for not solving the Kashmir issue.
Pitting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel against Nehru he said while the former resolved issues regarding the merger of princely states, "one person", referring to Nehru, could not solve the Kashmir issue, according to NDTV.
Modi was campaigning at Vallabh Vidyanagar in the Anand district of Gujarat ahead of the state polls later this year when he turned the business-end of attack on the first Prime Minister and he would not spare the state's previous Congress administration either.
He patted his back saying he could solve Kashmir issues by walking in the footsteps of India's first Home Minister Sardar Patel, and added that he has the values of the land of Sardar.
Modi was quoted as saying that Sardar Patel pulled off the task of merging all princely states with India but another person who handled the issue of Kashmir could not resolve it.
In his stump speech, Modi accused what he called "Urban Naxals" of trying to stall Sardar Patel's dream project of the Sardar Sarovar dam, dragging it through the courts for 40-50 years, wasting the money of the poor people of Gujarat.
'Urban Naxal' is often used in debates to refer to some activists and sympathisers of the Maoist cause.
Hitting out at the previous Congress governments in Gujarat, PM Modi said they made dams but with no canal network in place to carry water, which he completed in 20 years.
Subsequent irrigation helped reach water across the state boosting the growth of agro products to nine to ten per cent, he said.
He asked the state's congress workers to visit the world's tallest Statue of Unity in honour of Sardar Patel and bow down at Patel's feet showing some generosity.
Not only the Statue of Unity, he added, but the government developed the historic Dandi March route of Mahatma Gandhi, making a modern highway of more than 400 km.
Enumerating the progress the state made in 20 years he said electricity production has doubled.
The state is known, he said, for service, security, peace, the best environment for trade and business, and freedom from riots.