Subramanian Swamy barbs at finance ministry irk BJP veterans

The BJP top brass is annoyed with its Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy for his tweets against the finance ministry’s top bureaucrats because the statements are being perceived as his stance against Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.

His tweet on Friday, in which he used the word “bloodbath”, was seen as a response to Mr Jaitley’s advice in reply to a question on Dr Swamy’s demand that chief economic adviser to the government Arvind Subramanian be sacked and on Dr Swamy’s attack on economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das.

Sources disclosed that the BJP will not act against Dr Swamy for now and will wait and watch. Though Dr Swamy is considered close to the RSS, BJP sources said even the Sangh Parivar fountainhead would not appreciate the party MP publicly taking on the government. “People giving me unasked for advice of discipline and restraint don’t realise that if I disregard discipline there would be a bloodbath,” Dr Swamy tweeted on Friday, apparently in response to Mr Jaitley’s advice.

Rejecting Dr Swamy’s demand to sack the chief economic adviser, Mr Jaitley had on Wednesday cautioned fellow politicians against making attacks against officials unable to publicly defend themselves because of civil service rules. “The party has said that they don’t share Dr Swamy’s view... I will also add one more fact, from a point of view of discipline of Indian politicians... to what extent should we attack those, the discipline and constraints of whose offices prevent them from responding. And this has happened more than once,” Mr Jaitley had said.

Dr Swamy’s tweet advising BJP ministers “to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie, they look like waiters,” was also seen as a dig at Mr Jaitley who is in China attending a business forum.