Congress today used Arun Shourie's criticism to attack the Narendra Modi dispensation, insisting that the Prime Minister's former "conscience-keeper" has reinforced what AICC has been saying all along.
"Arun Shourie, BJP insider and Modi's former conscience keeper, has confirmed what Congress has steadfastly maintained. Modi government's signature style has been unilateralism, autocracy, subjugation of institutions and directionless governance"
" PM can be a good event or headlines manager but India's diversity and pluralism requires a government that feels for the suffering of its deprived and poor than mock at their misery which is being done by BJP in their arrogance of power", Congress' Communication department in-charge Randeep Surjewala said.
He lamented that the "final sufferer of this parochialism is painstakingly-built growth story of India".
Surjewala's remarks came a day after Shourie, a BJP minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet, had hit out at the Modi government, saying its economic policy was "directionless" while the social climate was causing "great anxiety" among the minorities.
The 73-year-old journalist-turned-politician has said the one-year rule of Modi was "good in parts", his transformation as Prime Minister was good in foreign policy but the promised turnaround in economy has not happened.
"The government seems to be more concerned with managing headlines than putting policies in place. The situation is like the many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle lying in a mess with no big picture in mind about how to put them together," he had said in an interview ahead of the first anniversary of the Modi government.
Asked if the Modi government had done enough to put India on growth path, Shourie has said that it was "all hyperbole.
