Congress has become a crowd around a fading dynasty: Jaitley

NEWDELHI: Buoyed by the BJP’s impressive show in the Odisha and Maharashtra civic polls, finance minister Arun Jaitley took potshots at the Congress, saying it has “become a crowd around a fading dynasty”.

In an article titled The squeezing out of the Congress Party, which was shared on social media, Jaitley held the Congress’ opposition to demonetisation and disruptive approach in Parliament as responsible for its rout.

He said parties adopting dynastic succession as an alternative to merit-based leadership creation suffer from a natural disadvantage. “Tall leaders do not grow in such parties,” the minister said.

Maintaining that the strength of such parties overlaps with the charisma of the current generation of the dynasty, he said any party has to suffer if the current representative of the dynasty lacks the ability to lead the organisation or the country.

“It becomes a crowd around a fading dynasty. This now seems obvious in the case of the Congress,” he said.

Jaitley wrote in detail about the Congress’ current state of affairs and compared it with the increasing footprints of the BJP, particularly in states such as Odisha and Maharashtra.

“The first message of these elections is that BJP has become a pan-India party, which is now fast spreading its roots, even in the eastern and southern states,” he said.

The finance minister said the Opposition party was defeated in Odisha and Maharashtra and was not even a major contestant in states such as Tamil Nadu West Bengal and UP. The Con gress, Jaitley claimed, was struggling to survive by becom ing the tail-ender in an alliance in these states.

“Many in the SP are wonder ing if it was worth leaving 103 seats for the Congress in UP. Is the Congress willing to intro spect as to why this is happen ing?” he asked.

Once out of power, Jaitley said the Congress refused to accept reality and its disruptive role in Parliament has projected it more as a fringe rather than a mainstream party. It was seen as anti-reformist, anti-growth he added.

“The Congress Party’s stand on demonetisation of high value currency is costing it dearly,” he concluded, saying the party has lost its traditional constitu ency of the poor electorate to the BJP.