New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that he has many "good friends" in the Opposition and added that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sends personally-selected Kurtas and sweets to him.
"I have many good friends in the Opposition. We do eat food together once or twice a year," Modi said in a 'non-political' interaction with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar.
Talking about his equation with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Modi said, "Even today Mamata didi herself selects Kurtas for me and sends it. Even Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina sends me sweets three to four times a year, specially from Dhaka. When Mamata didi got to know about this, she also started sending me sweets every year."
"Long time back when I was not even the Chief Minister of Gujarat, I had gone to Parliament for some work. Ghulam Nabi Azad and I were having a friendly conversation. When we came out, the media asked, how can you be friends with Azad as you belong to RSS. He gave a good answer. He said that whatever people think outside, the reality is not like that, as people of all organisations are connected as a family," he added.
Interestingly, Mamata has mostly been critical about Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government and openly opposed their various initiatives including Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetisation.
On Sunday, Mamata had accused Prime Minister Modi of causing hardships to the people through demonetisation and said the electorate in West Bengal will pay back by not casting a "single vote" for him.
"In 2014 elections, Narendra Modi's BJP party had won. But, in the last five years, the government has betrayed Bengal. He (Modi) is coming here and saying lies. He comes flying to Bengal at the time of elections and is nowhere to be seen in other times," she said at a public rally.
Before that on April 4, Mamata Banerjee had even termed Prime Minister Modi as "Hitler's uncle".
A day before that she called Modi as "expiry babu" and said, "His government has expired. You (Modi) said in Siliguri that we did not do anything for the poor. What have you done in the last five years? I have never seen a Prime Minister telling these many lies. Do not speak lies every day."
