Gogoi agrees with Shourie over “weak PMO” remark

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said he agreed with former NDA minister Arun Shourie that the present Prime Minister’s Office was the weakest in the country’s history.

“I agree totally with Shourie that the current PMO is the weakest in the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lost control over the running of the country,” Gogoi told reporters here today.

In a sharp attack on the Narendra Modi regime, BJP leader Shourie, a minister in the Vajpayee government, had said at a book launch yesterday that “there was never a weaker PMO as now and there had never been as great centralisation of functions, if not power, in the PMO as now.”

Chief Minister Gogoi further alleged that the recent Dadri incident in which one person was lynched for allegedly eating beef also clearly showed the level of intolerance the country had reached under PM Modi.

“As the Prime Minister, he should have immediately condemned the incident in unequivocal terms and should have sent a strong message that such forces would be dealt with sternly. He, however, opened his mouth only after two weeks,” Gogoi said.

Earlier, when Modi was campaigning to come to power at the Centre, he was so “vocal and spoke so decisively on all issues but what has happened now? Why does he keep quiet now and does not take necessary steps to deal with such serious situations facing the country?” Gogoi wondered.