Jaitley hits out at Congress over ‘surname’ politics

NEWDELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley launched a fresh attack on the Congress on Tuesday, stressing how dynastic politics revolving around a “great surname” undermines other prominent leaders and why such a practice is not in the nation’s interest.

If the Congress wants the contest in the 2019 polls to be between Modi and someone who is known only for his parentage rather than capacity, the BJP would gladly accept the challenge, Jaitley wrote in a blog titled ‘What was the Name of Sardar Patel’s Father’. “Let this be the agenda for 2019.” Jaitley said in dynastic politics that has no ideology, the strength of the “party is co-existent with the strength of the current generation of the dynasty”. He touched upon recent controversies involving Congress leaders who made remarks on PM’S mother’s age and father’s anonymity in the ongoing state polls.

“The Congress considers only a great surname as a political brand,” Jaitley wrote, adding that millions of talented political workers who come from modest families would fail the Congress’s test. He said he asked a few friends if they knew the names of Mahatma Gandhi’s father, Sardar Patel’s father and Sardar Patel’s wife, but none “had a definitive answer”. He said “...glamorising one family at the cost of those who made a far greater contribution is dangerous both for the nation as also for the party to which they belong”.