Arun Jaitley mocks Rahul Gandhi, says wisdom can't be inherited

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday took a jibe at Rahul Gandhi over anti-Narendra Modi tirade and questioned the Congress President’s wisdom, saying that wisdom has to be learned and cannot be inherited.

In a Facebook post, Jaitley wrote the Congress party has become ‘ideologyless’ because it’s ‘only obsession is a person called Narendra Modi’

Earlier, Gandhi had attacked the Modi-led BJP government for waiving loans of Rs 2.5 lakh crore by big corporates and has been criticising the Mudra Yojana.

Hitting back, Jaitley pointed out that the UPA government during 2008-2014 indiscriminately lent money through banks to 15 big loan defaulters. He said Gandhi preferred the "Gobbelian traditions to say the exact opposite".

"For a President of a national party not to understand this basic procedure of bank functioning should be a matter of concern to the entire party as also the country. In dynastic parties political positions are heritable. Unfortunately, wisdom is not heritable. It has to be acquired through learning," he said in a post titled: 'Is Congress Becoming Ideologyless? Is Anti-Modism its only ideology?'

The Congress president had cited the examples of famous American entrepreneurs to attack Modi’s policies and termed the founder of Coca-Cola as a ‘shikanji seller’ and that of McDonald’s a ‘dhaba wala’.

"Though factually what he stated was incorrect, the larger point is that he saw virtues in these professions which can act as a launch pad for many start-ups.

"The great-grandson of the man who authored 'The Discovery of India' could with his customary inaccuracies one day give to this country his monumental work on 'The Rediscovery of Coca-Cola'," Jaitley said.

He further said that there is no ideological pattern in Gandhi's statements. "Ignorance with anti-Modism is a common thread," he said.

Dynastic political parties are family and personality dominated and ideology takes a back seat, he said.

"The leader's ill-informed instincts become the ideology. This can only happen to a party which becomes ideologyless; pushes itself to the fringe; is willing to act as a tailender to regional parties. All this because its only obsession is a person called Narendra Modi," Jaitley said.

The minister also questioned the Congress party's 'sudden love for the Other Backward Classes' saying Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had opposed the Mandal Commission and the Congress Party recently opposed the grant of constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes.

On Congress leader P Chidambaram's comment that frying pakodas is not job creation, Jaitley said "being cleverer than rest of his colleagues, he perhaps was trying to neutralise the success story of the Mudra Yojana where 12.90 crore loans have been given for self-employment to various weaker sections".

Jaitley said the total of these loans had touched Rs 6 lakh crores and created work for millions of people.

(With inputs from agencies)