Cabinet rejig: Congress cries foul, says incompetent ministers not dropped

New Delhi:  Dubbing the Cabinet expansion as a 'bankruptcy of vision', the Congress on Tuesday said the incompetent and non-performing ministers have not been punished or dropped. "An important facet of this Cabinet expansion is the incompetent and non-performing ministers of Union Cabinet have not been punished or dropped, nor has anybody been rewarded. This according to us reflects a bankruptcy of vision and creation of futuristic leadership," Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told the media here. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also utterly failed to address the issues of governance and delivery. "No attention has been paid towards fixing runaway inflation or creation of jobs by infusion of innovative leadership in the Cabinet. Modi ji appears to be completely oblivious to the gloom in trade and business..to successive contractors in core sector industry, to falling exports for now 17 months, crisis in the banking sector and a devaluing rupee," he added. Surjewala alleged that the hate mongers and those propagating the agenda of division and deception have been given protection in the Cabinet. "Had this not been true then ministers like Smriti Irani, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Balyan, General V.K. Singh, Mahesh Sharma, Giriraj Singh half way dozen others would have definitely faced the acts," he added. Surjewala alleged this unequivocally established the fact that this agenda was being propagated with active complicity of the Prime Minister himself. "The NDA allies have obviously been completely ignored and the entire exercise has been rendered cosmetic purely aimed at propagating the image of Prime Minister as larger than life. Overall, it's been greatly disappointing for the people of this country," he added. In a much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Modi earlier today inducted 19 new faces, who have been chosen after an exhaustive vetting process to carry forward the government's vision of 'Gaon, Garib aur Kisan'. The 19 leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alliance partners the Apna Dal, AGP and RPI were sworn-in at a glittering ceremony held at the Rastrapati Bhawan here. President Pranab Mukherjee administered the oath of office and secrecy to them. Minister of State with independent charge Prakash Javadekar has been elevated to the Cabinet rank. The Ministers of State are Faggan Singh Kulste, S. S. Ahluwalia, Ramesh Jigjinagi, Vijay Goel, Ramdas Athawale, Rajen Gohain, Anil Madhav Dave, Parshottam Rupala, M. J. Akbar, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Jaswant Sinh Bhabhor, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Ajay Tamta, Krishna Raj, Mansukh Mandaviya, Anupriya Patel, C. R. Chaudhary, P. P. Chaudhary and Subhash Bhamre. This is the second expansion of the Prime Minister Modi's government. With today's induction, the total number of Ministers in the Union Council has gone up to 83.