Arun Jaitley targets Congress in Rajya Sabha over JNU row

With a week to go before the Parliament goes on recess and key bills of the government still stuck in the House, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday reached out to the Opposition, asking them to shed ‘’disruptive’’ politics and sought their cooperation while countering Mr Rahul Gandhi’s attack over issues related to JNU, intolerance, inflation and foreign policy. Responding to the attack on JNU row, Mr Jaitley said the government has nothing against a “particular student’’, an apparent reference to student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, but asserted that free speech cannot be allowed to be used to advocate break-up of the country.

“I expect mainstream political parties like Congress to be in the forefront of being against these people. Please don’t do anything that lends respectability to such people,” Mr Jaitley said.

CPI member D. Raja dared the government to show the political will to strike off the sedition law, saying, ‘’The RSS and Hindu Mahasabha never participated in the freedom struggle which is the source of nationalism’’. While explaining the idea of “anti-nationalism propagated against the students of JNU’’, CPI(M) MP Sitaram Yechury expressed “deep regret” that the President has not mentioned any of the issues faced by the higher education institutions — Hyderabad University, JNU, FTII, IIT-Chennai (Madras), and now Allahabad University — in his motion of thanks.

“They’re trying to make this a Hindu rashtra,’’ said Mr Yechury after mentioning the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh‘s effect on the government.

‘’What we are saying in this address is a very dangerous course for what will be the future of our Indian Republic. Total silence on issues that are dividing our people and dividing them through violence and strife, through the spread of hate and poison. And that is completely ignored in this address (President’s address),’’ he said.

Mr Jaitley went on to say, ‘’This is the time when we don’t need obstructive democracy. Our approach will have to be to work together. This is the spirit with which this government needs to function.’’ Mr Jaitley said the high point of the debate is that issues of corruption and scams were not raised. “If members have to struggle to invent an element of corruption, it speaks volumes on how the environment in this country has changed.”

Mr Jaitley also talked about the Ishrat Jahan case in a veiled manner to target the Congress, accusing it of “unbarring” the national security apparatus as it wanted to “fix” a political leader (Narendra Modi). Asserting that it was not simply a case of changing the affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case, he said the UPA government changed the composition of SIT on a couple of occasions.

“In the process, you unbarred the entire security apparatus of India because you wanted to fix a political leader,” he said, adding that “some day an investigation will take place on how internal security was played with”. Mr Jaitley said, “We obviously belong to a different ideological formulation and all of us have a right to believe that my own road map is the best to keep this country together.”

Mr Jaitley said the government has no hesitation in releasing the names of those accused of possessing black money. However he added that names can be provided once criminal cases are registered. Mr Jaitley added that if the names are revealed before filing cases, that will only work in the favour of the accused.

He talked about the present NPA crisis in banks, saying it was “not a big crisis but certainly a challenge’’ and questioned why the previous government did not take steps to avert the situation. Mr Jaitley rejected Mr Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the government has ‘’given away’’ the benefits of previous years on Pakistan, saying, ‘’We are compelling Pakistan for first time to own up that attack in India is taking place from their land.’’ He attacked the previous UPA government by raking up the “Sharm el-Sheikh” episode, saying, “You agreed to hold talks with Pakistan irrespective of whether terrorism stops or not.”