Congress dithers on ‘aggressive stand’

Demands to adopt an aggressive stand against Union finance minister Arun Jaitley were on Friday made at a meeting of the strategy committee of the Congress here, in the wake of the AAP’s allegations of financial irregularities against him. The party leadership, however, has not made up its mind and thus may go slow.

A Congress strategist was said to have said in the meeting that the party would take a stand at an “appropriate time”.

The strategy committee meeting was presided by party chief Sonia Gandhi. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was also present in the meeting which saw some MPs take up the matter vigorously.

Noting that the AAP has been taking up the issue spiritedly, they pitched for raising it prominently in Parliament next week.

At the Congress briefing, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad merely said that the party was studying the report in the case and would come to some conclusion in two-three days.

Two days ago, the Congress had targeted Mr Jaitley, demanding a joint parliamentary committee to go into the issue and the resignation of the finance minister pending the inquiry. But this has not been raised on the floor of Parliament so far, suggesting that there’s a division in the Congress on the issue.

Later at the AICC briefing, Mr Azad and leader of the party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge attacked the government over the Arunachal “misadventure”.

Mr Azad remarked that any government which is serious about business in Parliament does not embark on the “misadventure” of toppling an Opposition government and raiding the office of a chief minister.

“All this signifies that the government does not want Parliament to function as it is providing fodder to the Opposition,” he remarked.

He suggested that if the government wants to bring normalcy, the least it could do was recall the Arunachal governor and instead appoint another who has “no political interest”.

Matters will become worse if any RSS or BJP functionary is appointed to the post. Reading from the Gauhati high court order, Mr Azad said the prima facie observations of the court have proved that the Congress objections to the bizarre political developments were correct.