Former diplomat and Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor said the Britishers never wanted steel industry in India and it was Congress that created capacity for the same.

“Britishers spent lot of time actually thinking to prevent creation of steel industry in India,” Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.

The former United Nations official was here to deliver the keynote address in the first forum of All India Professional Congress Wednesday evening.

When Jamshedji Tata planned a modern steel plant, he has to wait for 20 years to get the permission from the British authorities, he said. The Congress party’s biggest achievement in last 70 years was it created the capacity in the country, Tharoor added.Tharoor quipped Modi is a good salesman selling empty packets.

Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tharoor said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was not a game changing government but a name changing government. “What we have seen with this BJP government, they have taken what we have dropped in UPA (government rule),” he said.

Having denounced the schemes publicly, they (the NDA government) have changed the name and continued with it; taking all the credits, he said, adding that he had been saying Modi was not a mere event manager, he was a good marketing man besides a good salesman.