Smriti Irani: No development in Gandhi family bastion

Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani attacked the Gandhi family on Friday for the "lack of development" in its electoral stronghold. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi represents Rae Bareli in the Lok Sabha and Congress president Rahul Gandhi holds the adjacent Amethi seat, where Irani herself contested unsuccessfully in 2014.

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She accused the two Congress leaders of failing to develop their own constituencies, claiming that 70 to 80 percent of houses there are still made of mud.

The people in the area had no expectations of its development, she told reporters after visiting the Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareli.

She claimed that during the UPA government's term, railway coaches were brought to the factory from Kapurthala and shown as the achievement of the Rae Bareli unit.

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"Now under the Narendra Modi government, 700 coaches are made here," she said.

"The rail coach factory here has become a symbol of possibilities under the Narendra Modi government," she said.