In a stinging attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today said most of his poll promises were all "hawabaazi" (empty talk) and that his government has "failed abysmally" to match words with deeds and media events with actual accomplishments.
The offensive unleashed by Sonia against Modi came even as the 62-year-old Congress leader's term as party president was extended by another year through a resolution adopted by the Congress Working Committee(CWC), the party's highest policy making body, at its meeting here.
Sonia also said that from aggressively mocking his predecessor Manmohan Singh and his policy during the 2015 Lok Sabha election campaign Modi has been reduced to "unedifying flip-flops", casting doubts on what he really stood for.
Giving credit to the campaign by Congress workers against land bill "under active guidance" of party Vice President Rahul Gandhi for the government climbdown, Sonia spoke of launching "similar" action against the "assault" on issues like labour reforms, women and child development, RTI and MGNREGA.
"The U-turn on the land ordinance is evidence that the government is out of touch with ground realities. It has become painfully clear that most of the pledges made by the Prime Minister during his election campaign were nothing more than hawabaazi," she said at a meeting of the CWC here.
In the first meeting of the CWC since the Prime Minister declared that land ordinance would not be repromulgated, Sonia said that due to Congress' sustained campaign, the government has been compelled to withdraw its "anti-farmer" amendments.
"The credit for this goes to every worker of the Congress Party, who under Rahul's active guidance, carried out a sustained agitation," Sonia said, hailing the leadership of the Congress Vice President to the cause of farmers.
Expressing concern over considerable deterioration in the security situation in India's neighbourhood, she said jawans and civilians are being increasingly targeted.
"Instead of a coherent policy on Pakistan, this government can't seem to make up its mind on what it should do," she said.
The economy is on a downward slide while prices continue on their unrelenting rise, she said, adding that the Modi Government has "failed abysmally to match words with deeds, to match media events with actual accomplishments, to match headlines with substance."
As for promises such as the creation of jobs or slogans such as 'Make in India', the less said about them the better, she said.
Sonia also charged the government with "systematically eroding" the autonomy and integrity of vital institutions which have stood the country in good stead.
Sonia's continuance as the Congress president for up to one year after the party today resolved to push back its internal polls by a year signalled that Rahul is unlikely to take over its top post in the immediate future.
With a view to bringing in massive changes in the wake of its worst showing in the Lok Sabha polls last year, the resolution passed the CWC puts to rest for the moment the speculation that had begun after the Congress Vice President's return from a sabbatical earlier this year that he could be elevated any time this year.
