The Congress on Sunday took a jibe at the induction of four former bureaucrats in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new cabinet, and said that this showed he did not trust his political colleagues.
Manish Tewari, Congress spokesperson, described the 9 new ministers as a “senior citizens’ club”, pointing out that the average age of the new inductees was 60.44 years.
While speaking to the media, Tewari claimed Modi was “strangely disconnected” from the Cabinet reshuffle exercise.
“It seems that (BJP president) Amit Shah is the prime minister,” he said, referring to reports that claimed Shah summoned ministers and asked them to resign before the reshuffle.
He called the expansion, “maximum government and minimum governance”.
Among the new members are ex-Mumbai police commissioner, Satypal Singh and former union home secretary, RK Singh.
“This reflects that the prime minister does not trust his political colleagues,” Tewari added.
Talking about the elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman, who was promoted to the Cabinet rank and put in charge of the crucial Defence ministry, Tewari said, “We hope she does not handle the Defence ministry the way she did the Commerce ministry, which saw a crippling decline of exports-imports during her tenure”.
The former Union minister termed the elevation in the rank of Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi “mere tokenism” and said the BJP’s attitude towards Muslims was “well known”.
