Shourie disgruntled at being sidelined: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday brushed aside former union minister Arun Shourie's statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'managed headlines instead of the economy', saying that Shourie had made such a remark as he was ''in pain'' for not being a part of the NDA government anymore.

"All I can say for our former colleague Arun Shourie is that somewhere, his pain of not being in the government anymore is being reflected through his career nationalism," BJP spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singhy said ANI.

Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also slammed Shourie saying the effect of the current company he was in was showing through his words.

Speaking at a book launch event on Monday, Shourie mocked the NDA government saying that it was nothing but 'Congress plus cow'.

"There is a clearer belief that managing economy means managing headlines about the economy and this is not really going to work. The way to characterise the policies of the government is Congress scaled plus a cow" Shourie said.

He also said that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) was never as weak as it was now.

"I feel there was never a weaker a PMO than now ... there has never been as great a centralisation of functions, not power, of functions in PMO as now," he said.

Shourie further said that looking at the way economy is being managed at present, people have started favourably recalling the days of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He also claimed that industrialists are afraid of speaking against the government. "The industrialists who meet the Prime Minister don't speak whole truth. After meeting PM, they wonder what is happening and say 'please do something'. And in front of media they give the government 9 out of 10," Shourie claimed.