New Delhi: In the saffron camp, it’s now father versus son.
Caught in a precarious situation with his father and former NDA finance minister Yashwant Sinha attacking finance minister Arun Jaitley for pushing the country into an “economic mess”, Jayant Sinha, the minister of state for civil aviation, on Thursday stepped in to defend the government in a newspaper column.
In the article, titled, New economy for new India, he claimed that the Modi government “will power long-term growth and job creation for New India”.
“The structural reforms unleashed by the Modi government since 2014 constitute the third generation of reforms since the first generation initiated in 1991,” he wrote.
Defending the decisions taken by the government on the economic front, Jayant Sinha wrote that the criticism regarding the state of the economy were conclusions drawn from a “narrow set of facts and quite simply miss the fundamental structural reforms that are transforming the economy.”
The junior aviation minister also listed some of the “fundamental reforms” undertaken by the Modi government and claimed that the government was “creating a robust new economy that will power long-term growth and job creation for “New India”.
“One or two quarters of GDP growth and other macro data are quite inadequate to evaluate the long-term impact of the structural reforms underway,” he wrote.
Unfazed by his son’s attempt to contradict him, Yashwant Sinha sought to know why Jayant Sinha was shifted from the finance ministry “if he was so competent” to respond to concerns raised by him. And then he chose to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yashwant Sinha claimed that despite several requests, the Prime Minister did not give him any time.
Replying to a question if he was “disgruntled” at being sidelined and hence criticising the government, Yashwant Sinha hit back saying that this was the “cheapest accusation” that could be levelled against him.
He insisted that “technically” he continues to be a member of the BJP as the party has not “thrown me out”.
Reiterating that the economy has “hit a rough spot”, Yashwant Sinha said, “We used to blame the UPA for policy paralysis. After 40 months in power, we can’t continue to blame the earlier government.” He hoped that the Centre will consider some course correction.
Advising the government, Yashwant Sinha said any government of the day “should listen” when people like former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or ex-Union finance minister P. Chidambaram, considered experts on financial matters, speak up, instead of dismissing their views as “political rhetoric”.
While most BJP leaders are either silent or engaged in flaying Yashwant Sinha, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha was the only one who came out in support of the former finance minister. The actor-turned-politician and Patna Sahib MP said Yashwant Sinha was a true statesman and had shown the government the mirror.
Shiv Sena, an NDA ally, also lent its support and asked the government to “prove whether Yashwant Sinha was wrong.”
But the BJP’s farmers wing president and party’s Bhadoi MP, Virendra Singh ‘Mast’, lashed out at Yashwant Sinha saying the former finance minister was “not an arthshastri (economist) but a anarthshastri (destructionist).”
In a newspaper article that appeared on Wednesday, the former finance minister had launched a blistering attack on Mr Jaitley and claimed that the economy was in a mess. His attack on the government’s decisions on the economic front, including the timing of GST implementation, was lapped up by the Opposition, which mounted a similar attack on the Modi government.
He said that the purpose behind highlighting concerns about the economy through an article was to bring certain issues in public domain so that the government does a course correction. Yashwant Sinha said that he did not expect his article to create “such a furore”.
To speculation that the aviation minister was asked to write the article to counter his father’s views, Yashwant Sinha said, “If someone has asked him (Jayant) to write the piece, then it is a cheap trick to play... I have not spoken to him (on the issue). Will do it some time to find out (what exactly happened).”
Apparently referring to Jayant Sinha’s article, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, “Dynasty is nasty but what the hell, let’s roll out the son to counter the article written by his father.”
