In a withering diatribe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday censured the Prime Minister’s ‘dictatorial tendencies’, wryly commenting that even L.K. Advani appeared moderate in contrast.
“The Congress was out of power but bounced back [after eight years] in 2004…At the time, we had an honourable opponent in Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But Mr. Modi’s credo of Mera Bhashan, Mera Shashan (‘my speech, my rule’) brooks no dissent, either on part of the opposition or within members of his own party,” said Mr. Ramesh, speaking at an event organised by the Pune Congress to ‘expose’ the Modi’s government’s three years in power.
There seemed to be no checks and balances on Mr. Modi’s uninhibited style of functioning, rebuked the Congress leader, quipping that seen in this light, even BJP stalwart like L.K. Advani appeared better and more tolerant.
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Stating that Mr. Modi was an expert in repackaging and rebranding, Mr. Ramesh said that the Prime Minister had cannily usurped the schemes initiated by the Congress and renamed them, claiming them as his own brainchild.
Mr. Ramesh, the former Union Minister of Environment and presently a Rajya Sabha MP, commented on the Centre’s abysmal performance in the last three years on the social, political and economic fronts, stating that the BJP government had utterly failed to deliver on the fronts of agriculture and employment generation despite promising and propagating on the contrary.
He further attacked present Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, castigating the latter’s handling of the Environment portfolio.
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“He (Mr. Javadekar) completely wrecked the Environment Ministry during his tenure…instead of devising urgent policies to protect the environment, he (Javadekar) took great pride in touting the number of industrial projects he had cleared,” Mr. Ramesh said.
At the same time, Mr. Ramesh acknowledged the Congress’ weaknesses in taking on the Modi juggernaut.