‘Cong ideology-less, obsessed with Modi’

NEW DELHI: In scathing criticism, BJP leader Arun Jaitley said a series of recent statements from Congress president Rahul Gandhi contains no “ideological pattern” and “ignorance and antiModism is a common thread” in them. “You can run down jobs created by frying pakodas. You can quantify on the virtues of running a dhaba. The leader’s illinformed instincts become the ideology. This can only happen to a party which becomes ideologyless; pushes itself to the fringe; is willing to act as a tailender to regional parties. All this because its only obsession is a person called Narendra Modi,” Jaitley wrote in his blog.

His post on Thursday was titled “Is Congress Becoming Ideologyless? Is Anti-Modism its only ideology?”

“On education he (Rahul Gandhi) believes we must have 200 IITs. The UPA never did so. It is the NDA which is now creating a network of IITs, IIMs and AIIMS all over the country,” he wrote.

Jaitley said Gandhi told an audience in Karnataka that his party believes there should be only one GST rate as in Singapore. “Singapore charges 7% GST on all food items, cheap clothing and footwear, medical and education spends as on luxury items — BMW cars, alcohol and five-star hotels. India has exempted most food items. Should we have same rate for food items, hawai chappals and BMW cars? Singapore, unlike India, has no BPL or lower income groups,” Jaitley said. He wrote OBCs deserted Congress in the early 1990s and said “Congress was always anti-OBC”.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala attacked Jaitley and said that he and Modi had “ruined the country’s economy”, alleging high unemployment and job losses.