A day after NDA government completed a year in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi replied to Rahul Gandhi's oft-repeated "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe saying the Congress is still smarting from its crushing defeat in last year's national election. Modi also hit back at Congress president Sonia Gandhi suggesting that she had been an unconstitutional authority exercising real power over the PMO during the UPA rule.

In an interview to the Press Trust of India, Prime Minister Modi said that the "Congress had not been able to digest its crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls even after one year. The people have punished them for their sins of omission and commission. We thought they would learn from this, but it looks as though they are proving right the earlier saying that if con is the opposite of pro, then Congress is the opposite of progress".

In recent weeks, there have been sharp attacks on the PM by the Opposition leaders on the issues like concentration of power at PMO, his frequent foreign tours among others, and Modi responded to all the charges.

The PM also dismissed the Congress president's accusation that the NDA government was showing obstinate arrogance in Parliament and that it was a government by one person. "Perhaps, she is referring to the fact that earlier extra-constitutional authorities were the ones really wielding power. If the charge is that we are working through constitutional channels and not listening to any extraconstitutional authorities, then I plead guilty to that charge."

Asked about the criticism that all powers were concentrated in the PMO, Modi responded, "Your question is loaded. It would have been better if this question had been asked when an unconstitutional authority was sitting above the constitutional authority and exercising power over the PMO."

Countering the charge, Modi said that increased powers had been delegated to individual ministries with the result that many decisions that earlier needed to come to the prime minister and the Cabinet can now be taken by ministries themselves.

On the Land Acquisition Bill, he said, "All rights relating to lands are with the states. The 120-yearold Land Acquisition Act was amended by the previous government without even 120 minutes of discussion in Parliament. Thinking the Bill was good for farmers, we also supported it at that time. Later, many complaints came from the states. One should not be so arrogant as to avoid correcting mistakes. So we brought the Bill to rectify the errors that too in response to the demands of the states. Anyone who looks at our proposed amendments without politically-tinted glasses will give us full marks."

Dismissing Opposition criticism of his frequent foreign trips, Modi responded by saying that 17 years without a visit by an Indian PM to Nepal was not a good situation. "Just because we are a large country, we cannot be arrogant ... We live in a different era. Terrorism is global and can come from several remote countries. International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions which will bind us and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken," he said.