Sushma claims Mehbooba praised Modi

Armed with minutes of the NIC meeting, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said her claim that PDP head Mehbooba Mufti had praised Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi at the conclave has been proved right.

Armed with minutes of the NIC meeting, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said her claim that PDP head Mehbooba Mufti had praised Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi at the conclave has been proved right.

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At Modi's Sadhbavana fast in Ahmedabad on September 19, Swaraj had said that Mufti was enamoured with the Gujarat chief minister's style of functioning and had given an example in her speech at the NIC meet to drive home her point.

Mufti, a known baiter of the BJP who differs from the principal opposition on a host of issues, had denied this, alleging that Swaraj was not stating the truth.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Swaraj claimed that she has now received the verbatim record of the proceedings of the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting held on September 10.

According to Swaraj, as per the official record Mufti stated at the NIC meeting: "...I recall once I was in Chennai and I met some one, a Muslim businessman, and he told me that he had gone to see Gujarat chief minister, and he said I was very impressed, I had an appointment with him regarding some business deal and he had got all the officers there, around him. They did not take even ten minutes and he got his job done..."

Modi has time and again drawn flak from civil society members and a section of the media for allegedly not doing enough to control the post-Godhra 2002 riots in Gujarat.

"Mehbooba Mufti told the media that I had misquoted her comments. She wanted Government of India to release the text of her speech to set the record straight," Swaraj said.

However, Swaraj clarified on social networking site Twitter that her aim was not to embarrass Mufti but merely to set the record straight.