New Delhi: Taking a jibe on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s entry into politics and her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said “One failed. The other won’t take-off.”
Continuing the series of his blogs on ‘Agenda 2019’, the senior BJP leader said that generation after generation, the Congress leadership berth is reserved for a member of the preferred family as he traced the post-independence history of the party from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi to Sanjay Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi.
The Union minister said that the Congress tried to remove itself from the shackles of dynasty for a brief period after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi but could not get out of its clutches for long.
“Sonia Gandhi then took over as the longest serving President of the Indian National Congress and thereafter passed on the leadership baton of the party to her son Rahul Gandhi... Thus, generation after generation, the Congress’s leadership berth is reserved for a member of the preferred family. When the party is now in doldrums, another member of the family has entered the scene,” said the BJP leader who is in-charge of party’s publicity committee for the Lok Sabha polls.
Referring to Ms Vadra, Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Mr Jaitley said, “The key que-stion is — will the dynastic parties learn from their 2014 drubbing and a possible defeat in 2019?”
“Possibly not. It is here that the people of India will have to bring about a change. India is not a monarchy. Neither is it a kingdom or dynastic democracy. Dynasts disappr-ove persons of talent and merit. ..The real strength of democracy will be realised when myth of dynasties is finally buried and these parties are taken over by men of competence and merit. That will provide Indians with a better choice,” he said.
The another curious feature, he said, is that most families where a single dynast created the party, have moved into the next generation. He added that Chinese philosopher Confucius had rightly said that just as there can be only one sun in the sky, there can be only one emperor on the Earth.
On the other hand, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi grew from an extremely humble background. He worked in the party organisation till he was inducted into the leadership and he had to work and struggle for the positions that he got.
"He earned them," Mr Jaitley said, and exuded confidence that Mr Modi and aspirational India would together demolish the concept of families.
