Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday reached out to Opposition asking them to shed “disruptive” politics while countering Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s attack on the Centre over the issues related to JNU, intolerance, inflation and foreign policy.
Responding to attack on JNU row, Jaitley said the Government has nothing against a “particular student”, an apparent reference to student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, but asserted that free speech cannot be allowed to be used to advocate break-up of the country.
“I expect mainstream political parties like Congress to be in the forefront of being against these people. Please don’t do anything that lends respectability to such people,” he said.
Intervening in the debate on Motion of Thanks to President’s Address in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley rejected Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the Government has “given away” the benefits of previous years on Pakistan, saying “We are compelling Pakistan for first time to own up that attack in India is taking place from their land.”
He attacked the previous UPA Government by raking up the ‘Sharm el-Sheikh’ episode, saying, “You agreed to hold talks with Pakistan irrespective of whether terrorism stops or not.”
“This is the time when we don’t need obstructive democracy. Our approach will have to be to work together. This is the spirit with which this Government needs to function,” he said.
Reacting to charges made by Rahul Gandhi on various issues, including the Government not passing the benefit of reduction in crude oil prices to consumers, Jaitley took a dig at the Congress vice-president, saying the “most dangerous calculation is the one done at the back of an envelope”.
He told the Congress benches in the Upper House, of which Rahul is not a member, that “somebody has convinced your leader (Rahul) to do all accounting on the back of an envelope”.
Defending the decision of not passing the entire benefit of reducing oil prices to consumers, the Finance Minister said while a major part has been passed on to consumers, some has been given to loss-making oil companies and part invested in infrastructure-creation especially in rural areas.
Underlining that unity of the country is “paramount”, the senior minister referred to the JNU incident and said, “if we have to keep this country together, then obviously we have to make sure that the space for those who speak to break up this country should be completely eliminated.
“But in the name of freedom of thought, freedom of expression, I have no hesitation in saying that both my party and the Government are absolutely clear that anybody who raises a voice against the sovereignty and integrity of India, we are certainly against them. We will discourage them and we will ask the law to take its own course. I would urge members that rather than come out with subsequent explanations that we don’t agree with them, they should be one in denouncing such activities as we have seen,” he said.
Jaitley said Congress has been a mainstream party and was personally very surprised to see it supporting a ‘fringe’.
He also talked about the present NPA crisis in banks, saying it was “not a big crisis but certainly a challenge” and questioned why the previous Government did not take steps to avert the situation.
Pointing to the shrinking world economy due to the crisis, the Finance Minister said, “This is the period when we need cooperation of all political groups. We are in the midst of a situation where we are fighting a global economic slowdown. The global economy is shrinking. The new norm now is volatility and uncertainty. We need to create firewalls to protect our economy.”
“Today the debate on intolerance is who will be the chairman of an institution. I have read history and remember that when a singer did not sing in a Youth Congress programme, he was debarred from AIR,” he said.
Jaitley also talked about the Ishrat Jahan case in an veiled manner to target Congress, accusing it of “unbaring” the national security apparatus as it wanted to “fix” a political leader (Narendra Modi).
Asserting that it was not simply a case of changing the affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case, he said the UPA Government changed the composition of SIT on a couple of occasions.
Rejecting opposition criticism for bringing Aadhaar legislation as money bill to avoid passage in Rajya Sabha where Government does not enjoy a majority, Jaitley said, “If a bill is money bill it is for the Speaker to certify it.”
Reacting to opposition criticism on blackmoney, he said, the new scheme announced by the Government is to give an opportunity to people to declare their untaxed incomes and it was “not an amnesty scheme”.
“If you have an income which has escaped tax, declare it, pay tax plus 50 per cent penalty. This is not an amnesty in which there is 50 per cent penalty,” he said.
Hitting back at the Congress, the Finance Minister said in 1997, it had brought a scheme under which there was no penalty and taxes were charged at rates prevalent 10 years ago.
On black money being brought from abroad, he said, “there is a procedure of making names (of those holding black money accounts in foreign banks) public. If we make it public, it will help the account holders.”
“Your advice (to make names public) is a bonafide advice, but it will land the Government of India in a trap. All your cooperation treaties have a covenant that information is being provided on a condition and that condition is that it can be made public only if a case is registered against the account holder.
He also rubbished opposition criticism for Prime Minister being critical of MNREGA earlier, under which this Government has made increased allocation in this budget, saying, “When PM said it was a living ‘monument of failure’ he wanted to say that evolving such a scheme after 60 years was a reflection of the things that enough was done “.