File Photo of Congress leader P Chidambaram.
Accusing the government of engaging in "rhetoric and U-turns" on the foreign policy front, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday said people are not impressed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's numerous foreign visits and want to know about the gains.
A day after the Prime Minister castigated Congress for blocking Parliament and asked it to take a New Year resolve to allow Houses to run, Mr Chidambaram said that the Congress's opposition to the government's wrong policies or poorly-drafted laws or ill-conceived schemes or acts of misconduct or misuse of government agencies cannot be termed obstructionism.
Calling PM Modi's "drop-in" at Lahore on Christmas day an "impulsive" step, the former Finance Minister said that what matters in diplomacy is coherent steps and not impulsiveness.
"I wish to make particular mention of troubled relations with Pakistan, Nepal and the Maldives. On Pakistan, more and more people are asking if the government has a clear and consistent policy at all," the senior Congress leader said.
"In Nepal, India seems to have lost the goodwill of all concerned - the Government of Nepal, the Madhesi parties and the people of Nepal who have suffered immense hardship over the last four months. Rhetoric, U-turns, and impulsive steps do not make a coherent foreign policy," Mr Chidamabram said.
He said that when anything is overdone, there are not only diminishing returns, but it also invites ridicule as "you will find from a cursory survey of the social media."