Bengal’s only alternative is BJP, Congress is a spent force: Jaitley

Claiming that the previous Left Front government had ruined the state during its 34-year rule, Jaitley said, “Financial and economic policies were such that large industries shifted and no new industries came up. Law and order was not good, local committees used to dominate and West Bengal became alienated from development.”

The biggest disappointment has been the vulnerability of the Trinamool Congress to corruption, he said, adding that “if Left Front destroyed the state, TMC belied the people’s expectations.”

“It is not just the chit fund scam or some sting operation or a flyover collapse, you lift one transaction and you will find a scandal. These are not isolated incidents that one or two of the leaders committed mistakes. It is a pattern. All the cases display a pattern. Their leadership is getting tainted in scandals one after the other,” the Union minister said.

The TMC had the opportunity in the last five years to make a turnaround but the party instead got embroiled in one scandal after another, Jaitley claimed. “(CPM’s) Local committees turned into syndicates,” he said, referring to allegations on associations that started as construction material supply chains with local toughs having close links to building promoters.

The senior BJP leader claimed that like the local committees during the Left government, these syndicates have become very powerful during the present TMC rule and were being put to use by the ruling government for electoral purposes.

In such a situation, West Bengal was yearning for an alternative, Jaitley said, asserting that “BJP on its own will give an alternative with a powerful and clean government in the state.”

On the TMC government ordering an internal inquiry into the Narada sting operation, Jaitley said that accepting bribe was not an act of party indiscipline but a criminal offence. “Through an internal inquiry, you can expel somebody from the party. But how can an internal inquiry deal with the penal consequences of bribery? It is a crime which needs to be investigated by the police or the CBI,” he said.

Jaitley also took a dig at the Congress-Left alliance and said “nothing can be expected from it. It is opportunistic and fighting for its survival”.

“Their (Congress’s) politics and policies are opportunistic. It is their battle for survival as they are looking for piggyback rides. In search of a few seats, the party aligned with JD(U) and RJD in Bihar. In Tamil Nadu, it went with the DMK and now in West Bengal it has tagged with the Left Front so that it can get some seats,” Jaitley said, and added that the ambition of the Congress was so low that it was satisfied playing the second or third fiddle and didn’t mind becoming the tailender of an alliance.

“Without any political or ideological stand, the Congress will never be a serious player in politics,” he said.