Congress kept petty politics above national interest: Jaitley

BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha, who has been at cross purposes with his party on several issues, earned a reprimand from finance minister Arun Jaitley over his support for a petition against the death sentence handed to 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon.

“Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the people of the country for such irrresponsible, unparliamentary and undemocratic attitude of Congress members”, the statement said. He added that the question may be posed to the person who had signed the plea.

Besides, he said, the government has taken a decision to allow PSBs to raise capital from the market through follow-on public offer (FPO) or Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP).

“We expect Sonia Gandhi to explain why Congress does not want a discussion in Parliament on the Gurdaspur terrorist incident”.

He said the BJP said in 2010 and 2012 that there should be “resignations (of ministers in the then UPA government) first and discussions later”.

“May I requestfully tell the BJP government as also their leaders to not give sermons to Congress party or the country considering BJP’s own poor track record in dealing with terrorism…”

He said mainstream national parties are expected to react in a responsible manner and are not expected to show the country as a divided house.

After Home Minister Rajnath Singh made a statement on the terror attack in Dinanagar town in Gurdaspur district of Punjab amid a din, after which the house was adjourned for the day without a debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley questioned the Congress’s intent. For Congress, politics is more important than national security.

The party also accused Congress of not being serious about the security of 125 crore Indians and for keeping its “petty politics” above the issue of security.

Terming the cross-border terrorist attack at Gurdaspur as a “very serious incident”, he said when the Home Minister was to make a detailed statement in Rajya Sabha on it, it was extremely important for Parliament to discuss it.

Referring to the Congress demand for the resignations of BJP leaders, he said the opposition party had staged a symbolic protest for about two weeks.

“Therefore, it is about time that Parliament should be allowed to function”, the Minister said.

In an interview to a TV channel, Jaitley said “Congress MPs have become captive of the ill-advice of their leaders”.

The union minister also said that the Congress was feeling “isolated” on the issue and accused it of “going directionless”.