To oust 'extremely popular' PM, you need real issues: Arun Jaitley's dig at opposition

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders for raising Rafale deal to tarnish Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image saying that ‘you need some real issued to oust a popular government’.

“To oust a popular Government, an extremely popular Prime Minister, you need some real issues, not fictional issues. The Opposition wasted the past two years in a run-up to the polls ‘manufacturing issues’ which didn’t exist. The false campaign on Rafale didn’t carry much weight,” Jaitley said.

In a hard-hitting blog post titled 'India’s Opposition is on a “Rent a Cause” Campaign', Jaitley said the opposition is in a disarray in many States as alliances have not worked out.

“Multi-cornered contest obviously favours the BJP. Verbal battles between the Left, Trinamool and the Congress and now AAP and the Congress are increasingly visible. On the leadership issue, the situation looks gloomier than what I had thought. The BSP leader Mayawati, the Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee leave no stone unturned in running down the Congress President,” he wrote in the blog.

Jaitley also slammed opposition leaders for questioning everything just for the sake of opposing the BJP. "There is no leader, no Gathbandhan, no Common Minimum Programme, and no real issue. Not surprisingly there are not many takers for a “failed campaign”. It is ‘Rent a Cause’ Campaign," he said in the blog, which is divided into sub-heads.

He also took on the grand old party over a purported letter by the Army veterans to President Ram Nath Kovind against the use of military operations by political parties during the polls.

Jaitley also took swipe at Gandhi by saying that the 'Congress chief attained an M.Phil without a Masters degree."

"One day the focus would be on the BJP candidate’s educational qualification, fully forgetting that a public audit of Rahul Gandhi’s academic credentials may leave a lot to be answered. After all, he got an M.Phil without a Masters degree! There is no running thread in the campaign which connects which is being said today or what has been said over the last several months," Jaitley said.

His remarks come a day after Congress accused Smriti Irani of falsifying her education records.