Bhopal: During his monthly radio address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had showered praises upon Dilip Singh Malviya, a 70-year-old mason from a village in Madhya Pradesh for his feat of building 100 toilets free of cost.
However, this has left Malviya in a state of discomfort because he feels that the PM has been misinformed, for he claims that he has only built around 50 toilets and that too not free of cost.
“I have built 23 toilets in this village and another 20-25 in another village,” said Mr Singh, a resident of Madhya Pradesh’s Bhojpura village adding that he accepted delayed payments and did not work free of cost.
During his Radio talk, the PM had said that hailing from a small village in MP, Dileep Singh Malviya has decided that if somebody provides the materials for building a toilet, he will do it for free.
“Initiatives like these take the country forward on the path of development so it is natural that we feel proud of Dileep Singh,” the PM had said.
However, the announcement left Singh embarrassed.
Even the village head Suresh Varma was embarrassed because the Prime Minister had also said that the village head did not even have a toilet at his home.
But, no one blames the PM for the goof up because when they dug into the details, they realised that the PM had learnt about Singh’s contribution from a newspaper, which had presented the entire story about Singh and his village with wrong details.
The village is now planning to pull up the reporter for presenting wrong report on Dilip Singh and presenting the village head in wrong light.
The matter has acquired political overtones with the Congress making huge hue and cry over Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan misinforming the PM about the home district.
But, the administration here has clarified that the PM in his talk itself had made it clear that the achievements of Dilip Singh Malviya has been highlighted in a newspaper, proving that he was quoting a newspaper report and had not based his talk on information given to him by the CM or the state.
