Isha Sahni

NEW DELHI: Political secretary of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel has strongly denied the claims made by BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi in an interview conducted by Doordarshan.

“I will quit public life, if Modi can prove I went to his house since he became the chief minister of Gujarat,” Ahmed Patel told Times Now, reacting to Modi’s interview, which was edited by DD. (sic)

Narendra Modi made a reference to the  Congress leader Ahmed Patel as a “good friend” who has stopped taking calls. This was edited by the Doordarshan authorities before airing the interview.

“Ahmedbhai is among the best friends I have in Congress but not now … I had a good friendship with him and would have preferred that it had remained so … but he now runs away from me and doesn’t take my calls,” Modi had said in the interview.

The Congress leader said the claims made by Modi in the interview are “ridiculous and baseless”.

He denied being good friends with Modi, as claimed by the Gujarat chief minister.

“I have never sought any favours from him”, he said.

Using Advani to hit out at Modi, Ahmed Patel said, “If he can’t even invite Advaniji for a meal, how can he invite me?”

Ahmed Patel had on Thursday clarified that he had lunch with Modi once in 1980 and that too in the knowledge of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

“This is election time and people say all sorts of things. I would not have liked to comment otherwise but this is part of his by-now familiar devious script, so I do wish to put it on record that to the best of my recollection, I had lunch with him once in 1980. That was in the knowledge of my leader, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. I have clarified this earlier also. I have not had even a cup of tea with him since he became chief minister in 2001,” Ahmed Patel said on Thursday.(source)