Gulf between Modi government's speeches, performance: Tharoor

Attacking the Narendra Modi government, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor Saturday said there was a gulf between its speeches and performance and "tremendous consolidation" of power in the hands of one man.

"There seems to be a gulf between action and implementation... between the lines in the speeches and performance," he said on the sidelines of a programme here to queries from reporters on Modi's governance.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP said though Modi had given sound bytes like" maximum governance, minimum government" during the Lok Sabha polls campaign, "we are actually seeing tremendous consolidation of power in the hands of one person... it is sort of a one man rule".

Tharoor alleged that ministers were being bypassed with the prime minister directly working through secretaries. "The lean and mean cabinet (has been) expanded... no real concrete evidence of minimum governance... it is maximum governance in the hands of one man."

He said another Bharatiya Janata Party election slogan talked of the government having no business to be in business.

"Which government businesses are being dismantled? If Modi genuinely believes that then why is the government running airlines, hotels?" he asked.

Tharoor, who was one of the main speakers at the Leadership Keynotes seminar "Driving Excellence through Creativity" at the INFOCOMA2014, also accused the government of giving sound bytes for the sake of "giving sound bytes".

"There is no apparent connection between the nice sounding soundbytes and the policy actions that should follow to fulfil those sound bytes. If this continues happening then we will develop a little bit of skepticism," he quipped.