'Mahagathbandhan' a political circus, negative agenda to 'remove one man': Arun Jaitley

In a scathing attack at the grand alliance of opposition parties, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the 'mahagathbandhan', which is a 'non-bandhan', political circus and a recipe for chaos, exhausted the country over the last few months. Several political parties, mostly traditional BJP opponents, have come together to take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the ensuing Lok Sabha Elections 2019 scheduled to be held between April 11 and May 19.

In a hard-hitting blog post titled A Political Circus Called 'Mahagathbandhan' on Facebook, Jaitley said the one thing which was rationale about the "mahagathbandhan" was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP were very strong and could not be challenged by individual party. 

Stressing that Indians judge politicians by their merit and capacity and no longer by any traditional loyalty, the finance minister said, "We were promised a 'coalition of rivals' because India had to be saved. We were promised a common minimum agenda. Each leader amongst the aspirant Prime Ministers wanted to become a 'sutradhar' (anchor) of the alliance. He/she would periodically organise shows in his/her State and invite the entire bandwagon".

The blog, which is divided into into sub-heads, also accused the grand alliance over "The leadership tussle", saying, "The past track record of such governments in terms of policy, longevity and growth has to be borne in mind.

Read | Arun Jaitley terms Article 35A constitutionally vulnerable, says law hampering development in J-K

In opposition camp, Jaitley said there is a tussle for leadership as already multiple candidates have made their desire clear to take over the mantle of the leadership. According to him, each one of them is interested to see the strength of the other party's contender depleting and also have high hopes in a chaotic and highly hung Parliament. 

"He/she believes that only in a chaotic situation he/she has a chance," said Jaitley, who is heading the BJP's publicity division of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections.

In its last stanza captioned as Federalism and coalitions, the blog gave a remembrance of successful BJP-led alliances under late BJP patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding that the size of the party and clarity on leadership in the last coalition was the reason behind a successful government under Prime Minister Modi.

Read | Congress dubs Arun Jaitley as 'blog minister', says Modi government uses his posts to hide failures

"Today you have no 'gathbandhan' let alone 'mahagathbandhan'. It is a 'non-bandhan'. You have no leader, no programme, no meeting of minds, Jaitley said, adding that "Stability, which is paramount, is a major casualty. The only thing in common is negative agenda 'remove one man'. It is a recipe for chaos".

The nominations for the first two phases of polling are over and those for the third phase are about to happen. The counting of votes for all the phases will be taken up on May 23.