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Cat fight in BJP: After Jaitley's 'cheap' comments on him , Yashwant Sinha says below my dignity to respond to it

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 30, Sep 2017, 14:18 pm IST | UPDATED: 30, Sep 2017, 14:25 pm IST

Cat fight in BJP: After Jaitley's 'cheap' comments on him , Yashwant Sinha says below my dignity to respond to it New Delhi: BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha accused Arun Jaitley of making "cheap" remarks and said the finance minister's criticism of his work amounted to criticism of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had entrusted him with key ministries.

In a dig at Jaitley over his "job applicant at 80" barb, Sinha said the finance minister did a great "disservice" to L K Advani as he first quoted the BJP veteran's advice that his remarks should be confined to issues and not involve personalities, and then went on to make a personal attack against him.

"So cheap is the remark that I consider it below my dignity to respond to it," Sinha said.

He then went on to recount his decision to quit the IAS 12 years before his retirement to join politics and added that he "voluntarily" decided not to contest Lok Sabha election in 2014 when he was "certain" of his win as he wanted to quit electoral politics.

Asked if he would not contest elections now, he replied in the affirmative.

"He (Jaitley) has completely forgotten my background. I gave up the IAS when I had 12 years of service left to join public life. I refused to become a Minister of State in the V P Singh Cabinet in 1989 as I had some issues."

"I retired from electoral politics. I am not active in politics and am living a quiet life in my corner. So if I was looking for a post, then first of all I would not have given up all these things I gave up," he said.

Sinha also hit back at Jaitley and other BJP leaders for their criticism of his work as a finance minister under Vajpayee and said he was given the crucial external affairs ministry and became "even a more active member of the Cabinet Committee on Security".

Sinha said those were "challenging times" when he took over as the external affairs minister in July 2002.

"Following the terror attack on Parliament (in December 2001), India and Pakistan were eyeball to eyeball on the border. To say that the external affairs ministry was a useless ministry and I was forced out of the finance ministry is a contradiction," he said.

This government, Sinha noted, has given the great honour of Bharat Ratna to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and BJP leaders then then criticise him too.

He had presented five regular and two interim Union budgets, he said.

Asked about his response to the government's recent moves, including the constitution of the Economic Advisory Council, Sinha said, "Let's see what great pearls of wisdom they come out with. Nothing has happened so far, so I will wait for some action before I make my comments."

A day after senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha slammed the Modi government in a stinging Op-ed in The Indian Express, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley defended the government policies saying they are aimed at ending corruption.

Speaking at a book launch event in New Delhi, Jaitley said: “I must confess that I do not have the luxury as yet of being a former finance minister. Nor do I have the luxury of being a former finance minister who has turned a columnist.”

Without naming either Sinha or Congress leader P Chidambaram, Jaitley said: Being a former finance minister “I can conveniently forget a policy paralysis (during UPA-II). I can conveniently forget the 15 per cent NPAs of 1998 and 2002 (during Sinha’s term as finance minister). I can conveniently forget the USD 4 billion reserve left in 1991 and I can switch over and change  the narrative.

“Acting in tandem itself wont change the facts,” he said as he took a jibe at Sinha for seeking a job by making those comments.

“Probably, a more appropriate title for the book would have been ‘India @70, Modi @3.5 and a job applicant @ 80.”

Jaitley also rejected the notion that the economy is in a downward spiral as suggested by Sinha. He mentioned the figures of tax collection to substantiate his claim of a strong economy. “Direct tax figures are 15.7% over and above last year’s figure, so this so-called slowdown visualized by some, hasn’t even impacted,” said Jaitley.

On why growth in the private sector has slowed down, Jaitley said some harsh steps were taken to control the effects of the “reckless lending” that took place during the UPA era.

“Today the challenge really is during the boom period of 2003 to 2008-09, our private sector expanded when global economy slowed down. Private companies had undertaken large liabilities from bank, did not find demand. When global commodity prices went down, many of them did not find their loans serviceable.

“Then came a situation in 2012-14 when the governmet virtually gave up, there was no policy initiative, they allowed things to drift on their own. When you allow this, the figure (NPAs) mounted up. I must say that those in government, those in banking industry, those in RBI, when reckless lending took place, all looked the other way.

“Then suddenly some harsh steps were required. so debate is are all those steps taken a bit too harsh. Bankers believe the steps with regard to excessive provisioning are a bit too hard on them. therefore the private sector area itself was one area we have not grown…several areas of private sector have grown.

“Large industry is borrowing more from the bond market than the banks itself. that is the problem that needs to be addressed by us.

Talking about the criticism against demonetisation, Jaitley said it “one of the smoothest possible replacements of currency itself.”

“People saw riots would begin, starvation would take place,. It was one of smoothest possible replacements of currency itself,” he said.

He also said that the note ban targetted the shadow economy.

“Demonetisation was to make sure that the anonymous tender which operated in market gets identified to its owner. The prime minister has a strong agenda on creating a new normal as far as countery’s shadow economy was concerned,” said Jaitley at a book launch event.

The minister added that the government is serious at checking the improper political funding. He added that illegtimate political funding has corrupted the society and tarnished the country’s image globally.

In a scathing Op-ed in the Indian Express on Wednesday, Yashwant Sinha slammed the Modi government saying ‘the economy is on a downward spiral’ and blamed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for “the mess the finance minister has made of the economy”. He wrote: “The prime minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters.”

“Private investment has shrunk as never before in two decades, industrial production has all but collapsed, agriculture is in distress, construction industry, a big employer of the work force, is in the doldrums, the rest of the service sector is also in the slow lane, exports have dwindled, sector after sector of the economy is in distress, demonetisation has proved to be an unmitigated economic disaster, a badly conceived and poorly implemented GST has played havoc with businesses and sunk many of them and countless millions have lost their jobs with hardly any new opportunities coming the way of the new entrants to the labour market,” wrote Sinha.
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