The Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of running a government “of some people, by one person, for a select few” and of taking “a blatant U-turn” on his promises of “transparency and good governance”.
Sonia not only slammed Modi for playing domestic politics while on foreign visits, but also accused him of deliberately keeping vacant key posts of Chief Information Commissioner, Chief Vigilance Commissioner and Lokpal. She criticised the Modi government for “systematically subverting the functioning of the RTI (Right to Information) Act and for “shielding” itself from “public scrutiny and accountability”.
She used two speeches – one delivered at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting and another on the floor of the Lok Sabha – to raise the pitch of the party’s tirade against Modi government.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi told journalists outside Parliament that the BJP-led government had kept the key posts vacant as it wanted to “grab land” from common people for its “industrial friends”. Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting, Sonia said while Modi talked about consensus, his government has been ignoring convention and acting with “obstinate arrogance”.
To drive home her point, she cited the example of the way the Modi government was “forcing its way in Parliament”. “Out of 51 bills, 43 have not been sent to the Standing Committees,” she pointed out.
“They deserve credit for creating the most centralised government in India’s recent history. Ministers hardly matter. Even the bureaucrats, who are supposedly empowered, feel paralysed, because all key files are pending in the Prime Minister’s Office for decision,” she said. She said Modi remained in “full campaign mode” as if the elections were not over yet.
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