One failed, the other won't take-off, Jaitley's jibe on Congress

New Delhi: "One failed. The other won't take-off", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said as he took a jibe on the entry of Priyanka Gandhi into politics.

Generation after generation, the Congress Party's leadership berth is reserved for a member of the preferred family, he said as he traced the post-independence history of the party from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi to Sanjay Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi.

Continuing the series of his blogs on 'Agenda 2019', he said the Congress tried to remove itself from the shackles of dynasty for a brief period after the unfortunate assassination of Rajiv Gandhi but could not get out of its clutches for long.

"Smt. 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 Party'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 senior BJP leader who is in-charge of party's publicity committee. Jaitley was referring to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been recently appointed as Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Finance Minister further said: "The key question 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 disapprove 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.

"In the next generation, there may be more than one heir. Both the heirs become aspirational and, therefore, the parent dynast distributes the largesse. But recent history has proved otherwise," Jaitley said.

He said Chinese philosopher Confucius had rightly said just as there can be only one sun in the sky, there can be only one emperor on the Earth. "Where power sharing between successor dynasts takes place, who is the ultimate emperor?" he wondered as he highlighted instances of family-based political parties in states like UP, Bihar, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh.