Pitted against each other in Punjab’s one of the prestigious electoral battle, three-time Rajya Sabha member Arun Jaitley and former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh are in no mood to pull down their verbal attacks on their rivals.
The latest salvo was fired by the Congress candidate from Amritsar who asserted that Jaitley’s move to buy a house in the holy city would be brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India.
A day after SAD-BJP candidate from Amritsar Arun Jaitley bought a house, he maintained that the move came “on Capt Amarinder’s advice” — in an apparent move to get away with a tag of “outsider”.“Capt advised me to buy house on the Indian side of the border. Now, I advise Capt Amarinder not to buy house on the other side of the border,” said Jaitley in a humoristic tone.
Reacting, Capt Amarinder said that buying a “luxurious house does not win Jaitley an election… only winning people’s hearts will do… This is too little for Jaitley to fight the tag of an outsider”.
Capt Amarinder disclosed that he will be bringing this purchase to the attention of the Election Commission of India so that this is included in Jaitley’s election expenditure. To which, Jaitley reacted, “Capt Amarinder has option and he can exercise it by bringing the facts in the notice of Election Commission as who stops him.”
He contended, “This house has been purchased by Jaitley with the sole purpose of convincing people here that he be considered to be a local resident which means he has done it with the purpose of winning the election that makes it a clear case of election expense…Even Jaitley has himself admitted that he had bought this house since he is being considered as an outsider.”
Asserting that it was just a poll gimmick by the BJP candidate, Capt Amarinder asked Jaitley, “You have been a Member of Parliament from Gujarat for last 14 years…how come you never felt a need to buy a house there while you have bought a house here before the elections.”
‘BARU’S BOOK CONFIRMS WHAT COUNTRY FElT’
Reacting on the claims made in Dr Sanjaya Baru’s latest book, The Accidental Prime Minister, Jaitley said that this “only confirms what the country ordinarily suspected” that the PM had to get most of his decisions approved and ratified from the Congress president and all sensitive subjects had to be discussed with the person outside the Government..
“I have started reading the book and shortly I will go through it completely. Moreover, writer of the book is an inside person having depth knowledge as what is going there,” he added.
Jaitley added, “The Prime Minister has to take most of its decisions approved and ratified from the Congress president. All sensitive subjects have to be discussed with the person outside the Government. The appointments of key officials would be regulated by 10 Janpath. Contracts such as the coal blocks allocations were allotted by the party.”
“Amongst various institutions which have been dwarfed in the UPA regime, principal one was the office of Prime Minister itself. Dr Baru’s book confirms this,” he said.
"Did he (PM) have the last word on all subjectsIJ Or is it the system of the original communist states that was operating, where the party general secretary was always more important than the head of the Government," Jaitley wrote on his blog.
While addressing a press conference in Amritsar, Jaitley said though party system was an essential requirement in a parliamentary democracy, the accountability lay with the elected representatives and not the party office-bearers.
"It is the PM and his council of ministers who through the Parliament are accountable to the people," he said. "Prime Ministers are known not by the number of years they have spent in office, but by the footprints they leave behind," he said.
The book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, has said that Singh had been "defanged" by the Congress party in his second term with Sonia Gandhi deciding on key appointments to the Cabinet and to the PMO as he seemed to "surrender" to her and to the UPA constituents.