Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said there is a monopoly of the PMO on the External Affairs Ministry and that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has no job except spending a lot of time working on people's visas.
Speaking at an event in London in the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Gandhi said: "You notice one thing, everybody says that it is a great thing that India's Foreign Minister spends a lot of her time working on visas.
"Do you realise what that statement means? It means the Foreign Minister has nothing better to do than get people visas. So, only there is the monopoly of the Foreign Ministry, and the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) has monopoly over the Foreign Ministry."
Sushma Swaraj really has nothing to do, though she is quite a capable lady, the Congress leader said. "If you actually give her the power to do something, she could probably break that monopoly (in the ministry)."
He maintained: "In India...if you're seeing something that is not scaling in India, just look at the monopoly that is not letting that happen.
"If you bring in new voices, if you bring in business, if you bring in other think tanks and give them actual power in the Foreign Ministry, it'll scale immediately."
--IANS
sid/nir
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)