Thursday 25 / April / 2024
New Delhi: Congress on Tuesday rejected Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s criticism of the party for disruptions in Parliament and said there cannot be a constructive engagement with the main opposition party by “targeting, blaming and insulting” its leadership.
“The statement of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Ministers blaming the leadership of the Congress for the Parliament logjam is unwarranted, objectionable and unacceptable. The Congress rejects the unfair criticism of its leadership and the party,” senior spokesman Anand Sharma said.
In a statement, he hit back at Jaitley saying it was “ironic” that this charge has been levelled by a finance minister, who has the “unflattering distinction of scripting and justifying” Parliamentary disruption as a legitimate strategy of the opposition.
“As a Leader of Opposition, he and his party BJP opposed and stalled all progressive reforms and bills to derail the economic agenda of the UPA Government including the Goods and Services Tax and Insurance Bills,” he said.
Sharma said the statement reflected the mindset of the government, which is both “arrogant and confrontationist”.
The government, he said, does not believe in building a mature understanding with the principal opposition party.
“Any constructive engagement cannot be achieved by targeting, blaming and insulting the leadership of the Congress,” the former Union minister said.
“Instead of sermonizing the finance minister is better advised to introspect, focus on putting the economy back on track and refrain from making uncharitable and offending statements,” he said.
Sharma said the “continuous tirade” was a diversionary tactic to deflect focus from the “miserable failure” of the BJP government “on all fronts”.
He accused the BJP of being guided by a “partisan agenda at the cost of the national interests” while it was in the opposition.
The main opposition party’s reaction came close on the heels of reports that Jaitley and some other top ministers at an awards function of an economic daily slammed the Congress’ ‘first family’ for the Parliamentary logjam and hinted at adopting ‘alternative means’ to get key bills passed.
Sharma, who is the deputy leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, said the Congress as a party in opposition has been responsible and mature in its approach.
“The fact that the Rajya Sabha in the last 18 months has passed 45 Bills including the Insurance Bill, and enacted and amended the Acts for Coal, Mines & Minerals besides passing the historic Constitutional amendment on the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh, which was vehemently opposed by the BJP in the Opposition, cannot be ignored,” he said.
Sharma, a former minister for Commerce and Industry, reminded Jaitley that the state of the economy is a matter of grave national concern.
“The GDP growth has been almost flat, investment sentiment is poor as is apparent from virtual non-creation of capital assets and there has been a sharp escalation in the debt to GDP ratio.”
He also said that for 12 continuous months merchandise exports have been in a free fall resulting in loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector.
“A government that had come to power promising 2 crore jobs annually has led us to a situation which is characterized by mounting job losses and abject failure to reinvigorate economic growth.
“This has led to despair and despondency amongst the youth,” Sharma said.
