In perhaps his most stinging criticism so far, former BJP minister Arun Shourie, in a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar on India Today, said that PM Narendra Modi’s two year-old government was characterised by “confrontation, centralisation, events, exaggeration and polarisation.”
We’ve broken down the 40-minute interview into quotes that’ll summarize the entire conversation.
On Modi’s two-year stint as PM
- ‘Modi’s two years as Prime Minister has been a boxing match with everybody.’
- ‘It is a one-man government without the checks and balances.’
- ‘The direction the government is taking under his supervision is not good for India.’
On Modi being ‘narcissistic’, ‘insecure’, ‘Machiavellian’ and ‘remorseless’
- ‘Modi treats people like paper napkins. Use them and throw away.’
- ‘Modi even uses tragedies like the Kerala temple tragedy, floods of 2014 in J&K and earthquake in Nepal to project himself.’
On Modi government using a ‘divide, win elections and rule’ formula
- ‘Ghar Wapsi and Love Jihad are well orchestrated & well-timed campaigns before elections to polarise people and win elections by any means.’
- ‘There will be a systematic attempt to curb civil liberties.’
- ‘De-centralized intimidation in which a cloak is given, such as nationalism is given to local thugs to choke the inconvenient voices.’
On corruption
- ‘There is thus far not a single allegation of any minister having made indulged in corruption in Modi’s government.’
- ‘However, corruption in the states continue and action is taken or not taken according to convenience.
On the AgustaWestland corruption case
- ‘Parrikar speech had no substance. He stated no new facts which wasn’t available in the public domain.’
- ‘Modi government had two years to find out new facts, they couldn’t find a single fact?’
On Modi’s Pakistan policy
- ‘We’ve made fools of ourselves with regards to Pakistan.’
- ‘Lunatic act of letting a Pakistani team inspect our airbase.’
- ‘It was wonderful initiative of Modi to visit Lahore on Christmas day.’
- ‘I think Nawaz Sharif would be feeling ‘I don’t what he will do the next day.’
On the state of the economy
- ‘Economy has been poorly handled. They’ve only managed headlines, not the economy.’