Congress must pick leaders on calibre, potential: Jaitley
Says party should go back to its original centrist position
Ahead of his US visit starting Monday, finance minister Arun Jaitley has said the Congress is unlikely to substantially expand unless it “selects its leaders based on calibre and potential”, and goes back to its original centrist position.
Mr Jaitley’s remarks, in his address via video conference to the Berkeley India Conference, came less than a month after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi addressed students there.
Mr Jaitley said the Congress was now out of sync with the ground realities of India.
Washington, Oct. 8: Ahead of his US visit, finance minister Arun Jaitley has said the Congress is unlikely to substantially expand itself unless it “selects its leaders based on calibre and potential”, and goes back to its original centrist position.
Mr Jaitley’s remarks, in his keynote address — via video conference — to the Berkeley India Conference, came less than a month after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi addressed the students there.
In response to a question, Mr Gandhi had said that dynastic politics was a “problem” in India, but maintained that a large number of people in his party did not have a dynastic background.
In his speech at Berkeley, Mr Gandhi had also slammed the politics of polarisation.
The Union finance minister is scheduled to arrive on nearly a weeklong visit to the US on Monday to interact with the US corporate world in New York and Boston and attend the annual meeting of International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington DC.
Responding to questions after delivering his key note address via video conference, Mr Jaitley said the Congress, which ruled the country for decades, is out of sync with the ground realities and aspirations of India as it exists now.
The main challenge before the Congress party is two fold, he said.
Historically and conventionally, the Congress occupied the centre space in India, the BJP leader said. They consistently did it through decades and that’s how they were the natural party of governance, he observed.
“In the last few years, if I may say so, this process started in 2004 with the establishment of National Advisory Council and has continued, and today I find that the position that they take on most issues is not the conventional Congress party’s centrist positions,” he noted.
“There are ideological agenda that are dictated by the ultra-left and they (Congress) end up being the cheer leaders as far as that is concerned,” Mr Jaitley said as he went on to take a dig at the leadership of the Congress itself.
“Secondly the party’s whole process of leadership creation within the party based on talent and potential and quality of an individual, does not just gel with the rest of aspirational India,” he said.