New Delhi: Taking a jibe on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s entry into politics and her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said “One failed. The other won’t take-off.”
Continuing the series of his blogs on ‘Agenda 2019’, the senior BJP leader said that generation after generation, the Congress leadership berth is reserved for a member of the preferred family as he traced the post-independence history of the party from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi to Sanjay Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi.
The Union minister said that the Congress tried to remove itself from the shackles of dynasty for a brief period after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi but could not get out of its clutches for long.
“Sonia Gandhi then took over as the longest serving President of the Indian National Congress and thereafter passed on the leadership baton of the party to her son Rahul Gandhi... Thus, generation after generation, the Congress’s leadership berth is reserved for a member of the preferred family. When the Party is now in doldrums, another member of the family has entered the scene,” said the senior BJP leader who is in-charge of party’s publicity committee for the Lok Sabha polls.
Referring to Mrs Vadra, who has been recently ap-pointed as Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Mr Jaitley said, “The key que-stion is - will the dynastic parties learn from their 2014 drubbing and a possible defeat in 2019?”
“Possibly not. It is here that the people of India will have to bring about a change. India is not a monarchy. Neither is it a kingdom or dynastic democracy.
Dynasts disapprove persons of talent and merit. ..The real strength of democracy will be realised when myth of dynasties is finally buried and these parties are taken over by men of competence and merit. That will provide Indians with a better choice,” he said.
The another curious feature, he said, is that most families where a single dynast created the party, have moved into the next generation. france imposes sanctions on masood azhar
