FM: Talent and merit has no space within Congress

New Delhi: Alleging that talent and merit have no space within the Congress, Union minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that for the Opposition party surname is a political brand and said that the BJP will “gladly accept” the challenge of 2019 general elections if the Congress wants it to be between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the son of lesser-known parents, and someone who is known for his parentage.

In an apparent dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his family, the minister said that while members of one family are projected as larger than life, “their aberrations become national aberrations...the party adopts them as its ideology.”

At a time when family members of political leaders, including Mr Modi, are being dragged in by their opponents during election campaigning, Mr Jaitley in a Facebook post titled “What was the name of Sardar Patel’s father,” said the “dangers of officially glamorising one family at the cost of those who made a far greater contribution is dangerous both for the nation as also for the party to which they belong.”

“If the Congress party wants the 2019 elections to be between Prime Minister Modi, who is the son of lesser-known parents and someone who is known only for his parentage rather than capacity, merit and competence, the BJP would gladly accept the challenge. Let this be the agenda for 2019,” the minister said.

Mr Jaitley said while the age of Mr Modi’s mother was made a subject matter of the electoral debate, his father’s anonymity was commented upon as an inadequate credential of the Prime Minister.