BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday described as “factually incorrect” claims that senior officials of Gujarat Police had spoken against holding of Narendra Modi’s rally at Beniyabagh in Varanasi.
“This is a factually incorrect statement communicated to Election Commissioner HS Brahma,” Jaitley said, claiming that the Gujarat Police personnel were being misquoted.Election Commissioner HS Brahma had earlier said that a Gujarat police official, who was part of the Advance Security liasson team of the BJP prime ministerial candidate, had ‘indicated’ that the chosen ground for holding the rally was not a ‘desirable’ place for the VIP to address his rally.
The Gujarat police official said it would “not be possible” to hold a rally at the venue as it was “highly congested” and “complicated”, Brahma had said.Jaitley said, “I personally and along with me Amit Shah repeatedly spoke to Gujarat Police officers who were there. They went to the District Magistrate and said we have no objection, please allow this rally,” adding that they were misquoted.
Speaking to senior journalist Karan Thapar on Headlines Today, Jaitley said the reason for the cancellation of the BJP’s public meeting at Beniyabagh conveyed to the party was that in 1991 there was a problem after a rally and some other reasons being given were “afterthoughts”.Quizzed whether it was proper to raise questions about the Election Commission, the way Modi had done.
“Everybody uses their own phraseology... Even though I did not use the word partisan, he (Modi) did. How do you rationalise a decision or can anyone rationalise a decision that at a particular venue three parties would be allowed, one will not be allowed,” he said.Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi lekhi asked the EC to take right steps to prevent violence in four constituencies — Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Ghazipur and Ghoshi, going to poll on Monday.
She said the UP Administration was supposed to work impartially under the EC but that was not the case “as was evident by the raids on the BJP office at Varanasi.” The EC is a Constitutional body and it should exercise its own authority accordingly, said lekhi.Jaitley on Sunday also hit out at dynasty politics saying continuation of such leadership was counter-productive for a political party in a democratic set-up.
“I have always believed that indefinite continuation of a dynasty as a mode of leadership selection can be counter-productive for a party. The strength of a party is only as much as the acceptability of that generation of the dynasty,” Jaitley said in his Campaign Diary, in an indirect attack on the Congress.“As the General Elections 2014 comes to a close, the logical expectation is that the Congress will be reduced to a double digit,” he wrote in his blog.
He said, “Rahul Gandhi’s leadership failed to inspire both the nation and the Congressmen. A dynastic party will never accept that. It will at best consider that if one member of the dynasty has failed to deliver, dependence should be made on another member of the dynasty.”