In his blog Jaitley sounded caution to caste and dynasty-based parties waging a politics of coalition of rivals, which has been rejected by ‘New India’. He called the left “obstructionist”
New Delhi: Senior BJP leader and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday deconstructed the Opposition’s bogey of jimmied EVMs and castigated Congress’s first family as its biggest liability rather than an asset. He warned the Opposition that caste and dynastic politics together with coming together of rivals did not go any longer with the ‘New India’.
Jaitley made a logical critique of the EVM ruckus. “Many of us may continue to squabble over correctness and accuracy of the Exit Polls. The hard reality is that when multiple Exit Polls convey the same message, the direction of the result broadly would be in consonance with the message,” he wrote in his blog.
“Exit Polls are based on personal interviews. The EVMs have no role. If the results of the Exit Polls and final results on the 23rd May 2019 are in the same direction, the Opposition’s fake issue of the EVMs would also lose its non-existent rationale,” Jaitley added.
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Lauding the “maturing of Indian democracy” since 2014, Jaitley said, “The electorate keeps national interest paramount before exercising choice on whom to vote for. When well-meaning people with similar ideas vote in the same direction, it leads to the making of a wave.”
In his exposition, Jaitley claimed to see this maturing process in the electoral rejection of dynasticism, caste-based formations, “obstructionist” left and ‘Coalition of Rivals’.
“Dynastic parties, caste parties and the Obstructionists Left received a setback in 2014. This will be reiterated, loud and clear, in 2019,” Jaitley wrote, adding, “‘Coalition of Rivals’ is untenable alliances, and the voters are no longer willing to trust them. Political analysts are confused, but the voters are clear. They don’t elect hung Parliament where ugly and untenable coalitions have a role to play.”
“The arithmetic of caste coalitions loses to the chemistry on the ground created for the front runner in the elections. This chemistry is in the form of catching the imagination of the people on issues of national interest,” Jaitley wrote.
Addressing the Congress’s and rest of the Opposition’s claims of corruption in the Modi regime, Jaitley said, “Fake issues only satisfy the ‘manufacturers of fakery’. The voters don’t buy them.”
Drawing a parallel with 2014 general elections, the finance minister said the “personalised campaign against Prime Minister Modi” had backfired in 2019 just as in 2014.
Jaitley said that this personal attacks on the prime minister “did not cut much ice in 2014 and may not cut any ice in 2019”.
“Leaders are judged on merit and not on caste or family names. Thus, the Prime Minister’s style of rising above caste and concentrating on performance related issues received far more acceptability with the electorate,” he argued.
“I re-assert my earlier hypothesis that in the Congress the first family is no longer an asset but an albatross around the neck of the Party. Without the family, they don’t get the crowd, with it they don’t get the votes,” Jaitley said, taking the Gandhi family in his crosshairs.
Jaitley also castigated a section of India politicians who “believe that the ultimate wisdom lies only with them.”
It was here that lay their fault, he said. “They are, thus, unwilling for any radical solutions. The evolving ‘New India’ will accept structured parties with talent and ideological clarity, concentrating on performance. If, however, the political parties are unwilling to get the message of 2014 and the possibly of 2019, then alienation from the electorate will only widen.”
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