PM should not lie to please a foreign country, says Shankersinh Vaghela

 Senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not lie to please the people of Kazakhstan.

Modi (when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat) had refused to wear a skull cap but now he was praising the Islamic culture of Central Asia, Vaghela said. "Our PM was in Central Asia (on a visit to Kazakhstan). During his speech there, he praised the Islamic culture of that region. This is very strange, because in the past, he had once refused to wear a skull cap. Such double standard does not become of him," said Vaghela.

"Why is he suddenly showing so much affection for the region?...The PM should not tell lies just to please a country," Vaghela said. The Congress leader also asked Modi to check the progress made by Astrakhan, a province of Russia, regarding the MoUs it had signed with Gujarat during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit of 2005.

"When our PM is going to Russia, I want to remind him about MoUs signed between Gujarat and Astrakhan. I don't know what is the progress in the last ten years. I want to request the PM to get a progress report from them," Vaghela said.

He also raised the issue of cleanliness around the bust of former Prime Minister, the late Lal Bahadur Shastri, in Tashkent, where Modi paid tribute on Tuesday. "You will find empty liquor and beer bottles around that memorial....I saw it with my own eyes. I request the PM to raise this issue during his visit so that cleanliness is maintained throughout the year," he said