A video of newly sworn-in Minister Anant Kumar Hedge was part of the Congress’s offensive on PM Narendra Modi’s Cabinet expansion, which it called “maximum government and no governance.” Former Minister Manish Tewari targeted Ministers who were promoted.
On the elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman, he said, “We can only hope she doesn’t run the Defence Ministry like the Commerce Ministry that saw a ‘crippling decline’ in exports over the past 38 months.”
“Dharmendra Pradhan was rewarded for putting the burden of oil price hike on the common man as petrol prices were raised by ₹6 between July and September and diesel prices by about ₹4,” he said.
Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram took to Twitter to criticise the reshuffle. “Agriculture in distress and health in crisis. Ministers remain,” he said in a series of tweets that also saw him point out that exports were ‘stagnant’ and manufacturing is in ‘doldrums.’
On the induction of Anant Kumar Hegde, the Lok Sabha member from Uttara Kannada, who is seen physically assaulting doctors of a Karwar medical college in a January 2017 video, Mr. Tewari told The Hindu , “It is a paradox that while we have launched the All India Professional Congress to honour professionals like doctors, engineers and teachers, Prime Minister Modi has appointed a person who beat up not one but three doctors.”
The footage from the hospital CCTV camera shows Mr. Hedge assaulting the persons for allegedly “not taking proper care” of his ailing mother.
Mr. Tewari also alleged that Mr. Hegde has been appointed keeping “Karnataka polls in mind and his image of doing politics of polarization.”
The Congress pointed out that the average age of the new ministers was 60.44 years and with four former bureaucrats joining Mr. Modi’s team, the Congress alleged that “the Prime Minister didn’t have much faith in his political colleagues.”
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley countered the criticism by pointing out that the Congress had made Dr. Manmohan Singh, a former bureaucrat, the Prime Minister.
The Cabinet expansion also gave the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief, Lalu Prasad Yadav, an opportunity to target Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who he said wasn’t even invited. “Some JD(U) leaders had got new Kurta Pyjama and Bundi stitched for the swearing-in ceremony, but the elusive invitation did not come,” he told reporters in Patna.
