Shashi Tharoor attacking PM said "every decision is taken by the PMO". (File)
Highlights
- PM Modi one-man government, everybody dancing to what he says: Tharoor
- He recently quoted a RSS leader calling PM a "scorpion on a shivling"
- A case was filed against him on Saturday over the "scorpion" remark
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand".
Mr Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival last Sunday when he claimed that an unnamed RSS leader had compared PM Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling". "You cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either," he had said.
A criminal defamation complaint was filed against him in a Delhi court on Saturday over the "scorpion" remark.
Mr Tharoor, however, again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion (horse) with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers".
"Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history.
"Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed.
On the next parliamentary election, Mr Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi "may not be" the prime ministerial face.
"The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power," the Congress MP said.
He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and "it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having tremendous track record".
Mr Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. "If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down," the Congress MP said.
Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Mr Tharoor said, "We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy." "Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly," Mr Tharoor said.