Having denied the Congress the status of the ruling party in 2014, the electorate is now denying it the status of the principal Opposition party, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here on Thursday after results of the municipal polls in Maharashtra were announced.
He said the Congress’s opposition to demonetisation and the use of new technology and its reliance on one family were the key reasons for its present state.
Mr. Jaitley said the BJP was now emerging as a pan-Indian party, spreading its roots even in eastern and southern India.
Tail-ender party
“But what about the Congress? In Odisha, it got squeezed out of the contest. In Maharashtra, it got pushed to third or fourth place in most cities. It is not even a major contestant in States like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh,” Mr. Jaitley said in a statement. “It is struggling to survive by becoming the tailender in an alliance in these States. Many in the Samajwadi Party are wondering if it was worth leaving 103 seats to the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.”
The Congress, he said, had acquired an image of being a fringe, anti-reformist, anti-growth party. “The Congress Party’s stand on demonetisation of high value currency is costing it dearly. Tax evasion enables a small percentage of the population to unjustly enrich itself at the cost of the exchequer. Public resources get reduced and hence the expenditure on the vast section of population is reduced.”
“The poor have supported the demonetisation. The Congress has lost its traditional constituency of the poor to the BJP,” he said.
