New Delhi, May 2: Arun Shourie's withering criticism of the Narendra Modi government days before its first anniversary was challenged today by two Union ministers who questioned his intent.

"If some individuals have some grouse, they did not get some position and want to make issues out of non-issues, I think they are best left to judge whether they are saying the right thing," said Piyush Goyal, minister of coal and power.

Goyal, like commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman - the other minister who defended the government - is seen as a protégé of Arun Jaitley, who came in for even sharper attack than Modi in Shourie's interview yesterday to Headlines Today.

Shourie, who was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's blue-eyed boy as disinvestment minister in his government, alleged that Modi's economic policy was "directionless", investments had not picked up and the "Make in India" concept would not take off unless labour reforms were ushered in, and debunked as "hyperbole" the claim of a projected 10 per cent growth rate.

Modi's "silence" on concerns among minorities drew criticism and his monogrammed suit was described as "inexplicable", "incomprehensible" and a "critical mistake".

Shourie contested Jaitley's claim of credit for the start of a turnaround in the economy, contending that the fall in oil and commodity prices had helped. "The task of leadership is to appropriate failure and distribute success. Here it is the opposite," he said.

The former minister also alleged that the government's handling of taxation issues was "going to retard foreign investment in India because they (the overseas investors) require ability and predictability and that is not happening".

Sitharaman said in an interview to the news agency ANI today that Shourie "probably did not have all the information".

She asked why he had disputed every figure on the economy put out by the government, whether it was on fiscal deficit, current account deficit or inflation, arguing that the statistics were "corroborated" independently by "outside" agencies.

"To call all this hyperbole is to pour water on the government's efforts. It makes you wonder with what intent he is saying (this). It seems he is negating whatever happened in the last 10 months that was not achieved in 20 years," the commerce minister said.

Shourie's interview coincides with murmurs among a section of industrialists that the Modi government has not done much on the reforms front.

The economist-turned-editor-turned-author, who does not hold any position in the BJP, also said that the triumvirate of Modi, Amit Shah and Jaitley had "offended" the Opposition and "frightened" party members.

"The government seems to be more concerned with managing headlines than putting policies in place. The situation is like the many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle lying in a mess with no big picture in mind about how to put them together," Shourie said in the interview to Karan Thapar.

At the BJP national executive meeting in Raipur in 2003, Shourie was believed to not have taken the comparison well when Vajpayee described him and Jaitley as "outstanding" ministers.

Sitharaman today referred to Shourie's praise for Amitabh Kant, secretary, industrial policy and promotion, who is associated closely with the "Make in India" project. "You cannot praise a secretary of the government of India and then say the Prime Minister is not doing anything on the same scheme," she said.

National secretary and Bengal minder Sidharth Nath Singh tweeted: "#Arun Shourie outburst against @ModiSarkar2014 best explained as Career Nationalism."

Like Sitharaman and Goyal, Singh is seen as a Jaitley loyalist.