Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Congress in today’s time has been “reduced to a crowd around a family”, which faces all the challenges faced by a political party centred around a family. “The hold of BJP is growing in the politics of all states be it Bengal or Kerala. what will happen to Congress no one knows,” Jaitley said Friday while addressing BJP workers at the Vikas Parva programme in Lucknow to observe the completion of two years of Modi government. He said Congress’ problem is that it cannot attract crowd without the family and if the family is kept together, the crowd does not grow. [related-post] With politics of dynasty, he said, “the first problem is that no new leadership is developed outside one particular family. Secondly, if any generation of the family is strong like Nehru and Indira Gandhi then that strengthens the party. But, if there is any generation that lacks such capability, then that generation not only destroys itself but also destroys the party.” Jaitley said that ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ does mean the end of the party but the end of its “political culture” and the “removal of the blot” that it has given to the art of governance. “We want Congress to continue in opposition.” Rejecting the idea of a “federal front” mooted by RJD’s Lalu Prasad, Jaitley said “it was a tried, tested and failed idea, tried many times” in the past. “The nucleus of any party should have power.for winning Bihar, they (the Grand Alliance) needed the support of Lalu and now they are talking about a federal front,” he said, adding that a party with 15-20 seats cannot provide stability. Stressing that BJP has been a nationalist party, Jaitley lashed out at the mainstream parties for aligning with fringe elements. “Some people felt they would be regarded as progressive if they aligned with those raising a ‘bharat todo’ campaign in JNU and Jadavpur University.. but the nation has rejected that idea. I hope Congress would have taken a lesson from that,” he said, and spoke of the BJP having “a historical opportunity to take the country ahead towards development and show that an honest governance is possible”. Comparing the functioning of the first two years of the Narendra Modi government with the pace of batting in slog overs, Jaitley said that the economy which suffered from “policy paralysis” before has now emerged as the fastest growing one. “Unlike the previous governments, the present one has started its tenure by engaging in sheer hard work and worked like one works in slog overs. This policy paralysis has been overturned and now the world salutes the country,” he said. In the lighter vein, the Union minister said that it is not easy to be a minister in this government as one has to keep pace with the Prime Minister who has been aptly described as a “24 by 7 PM” in the media. “It was very easy working as the leader of opposition during the UPA government’s time as there was a constant flow of scams which we exposed,” he said. Terming the recent victories of the BJP in state Assembly elections as the result of its hard work, Jaitley said now a debate has started as to who will be the main opposition against the BJP - the Congress or some regional party. On PM Modi, he said since 2002, all sort of things have been said against him but he continued to work hard and directly established a dialogue with the people. “The result is that the prime minister draws crowds even in foreign countries and there appears to be no difference between his rally in Sydney or Lucknow,” he said, adding that it is the first time that people world over are feeling proud of being an Indian. Citing the works undertaken by various central departments, he said that lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha has not been allowed to deter the functioning and some 101 bills have been passed while the states have received “full support”. In the power sector it is the first time that the availability is more than the requirement, he claimed. Minister of State for HRD Upendra Kushwaha said that the centre was giving financial and academic support to the states for ensuring quality education. He said that 40 new central schools have been opened in the country in the past two years. “There is a proposal to open 165 more central schools. Several of these were from UP but only one proposal from Hamirpur fulfilled the norms,” Kushwaha said. He said that five new Navodaya schools will be opened in Kasganj, Sultanpur, Hapur, Badaun and Shamli. Party national vice-president Prabhat Jha said that Union Cabinet has taken 548 decisions in the past two years and implementation process in 459 of them has been started.
