New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS): Former Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora is facing flak from his own party colleagues for praising Arvind Kejriwal after he said that Delhi Chief Minister made the national capital a surplus state.

Milind Deora wrote on Twitter, "Sharing a lesser known & welcome fact - the @ArvindKejriwal-led Delhi Government doubled its revenues to Rs 60,000 crore & maintained a revenue surplus over the last 5 years. Food for thought: Delhi is now one of India's most fiscally prudent governments."

The first reaction came from Ajay Maken, who wrote replying Deora, "Brother, you want to leave @INCIndia - Please do - Then propagate half baked facts!"

Ajay Maken then compared the revenue generation from 1997-1998 onwards and said that during the Congress rule in 2013-14 BE (Revenue) was Rs 37,459 cr, which grew at 14.87 per cent. He said this has come down to Rs 60,000 crore in 2019-20, a growth of only 9.90 per cent.

Not even Maken, former Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba also attacked Deora, who is considered close to Rahul Gandhi. She said: "Join Congress in the name of father, get ticket because of political lineage and then lose the election while leading the party. But when it's time to fight for the party, play guitar" (In an obvious reference to Deora).

Another party leader Radhika Khera, who contested from Janakpuri but lost, criticised Deora. She wrote on Twitter, "As a young first time contestant, I find this extremely disappointing from our senior leaders, who instead of encouraging our own party to do better are busy patting AAP's back! Food for thought: Delhi has run a surplus since 1994, this peaked in 2011 under Sheila Ji."

The first banner was raised by Sharmishtha Mukherji who criticised P. Chidambaram for praising AAP.

The party has reprimanded its leaders not to speak in Public and discuss the matter in the party forum only.