Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the Information and Broadcasting portfolio, is the chief political strategist of the Bharatiya Janata Party. As the Narendra Modi government completes two years in power, Mr. Jaitley talks about reaching across the aisle to pass legislation and increasing the BJP’s reach electorally. Excerpts from an interview with The Hindu :
What is the BJP-led NDA government’s agenda for the next three years?
The NDA government moved fairly rapidly with a lot of structural reforms in the first two years… that direction will continue. Of course, many ministries have pending legislative agendas; we, in finance, also have issues which remain. They include rationalisation of direct taxes, the GST [Goods and Services Tax], some amendments to the Companies Act, SARFAESI [The Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act] and the DRT [Debt Recovery Tribunal] laws which have already been introduced, the CAMPA [Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority] Bill has to be passed. As part of the anti-black money effort, the benami properties’ law is already before Parliament. Two more are there at the drafting stage: one refers to bankruptcy of financial firms, the other to resolution of disputes in major PPP contracts. This will go on in parallel.
In addition, there will be three critical priorities. One, rural areas: there will be a huge amount of spending and development in those areas. Two, infrastructure, which will impact manufacturing. And three, the steps that we have taken on social security should then [swell] into a much larger social security package for the weaker sections.
You recently expressed confidence in getting the GST Bill through the Rajya Sabha. Does this mean that you now have the support of more parties?
My preference is to do it by consensus and the rationale for that is that every State government has to implement it. In the Empowered Committee, all State governments, including Congress governments, are supporting the Bill. The Congress had the original authorship of the Bill. Therefore, ideally, I would like everybody to be on board. At some stage or other, we will have to say enough is enough. In any case, every ally of the Congress has independently taken a position in favour of the GST — the RJD, the JD(U), the NCP and so on. The SP and the BSP are both supporting it; all regional parties are backing it. If you take a headcount, there is overwhelming support in the Upper House.
The BJP is today clearly one pole of Indian politics. The Congress is reduced to six States, of which five are small hill States. What is the other pole, the Congress or a group of other parties?
Democracy is always about alternatives. It never accepts a vacuum. Today, the Opposition is splintered. The Congress has weakened; it doesn’t seem to be in touch with reality to take steps to rectify its problems. How do I see the Opposition? In NDA versus Congress, the Congress is far behind. Is a combination of regional parties possible? The answer clearly is no. First, there are many regional parties that are BJP-friendly; second, even among the regional parties there are many who can’t sit together. The DMK and the AIADMK can’t be together, the Left and the Trinamool can’t be together; the SP and the BSP can’t be together... there are too many contradictions. Third, this experiment has been replicated in the past and it has always failed. Fourth, in a national coalition, the anchor has to be fairly large in political size for the coalition to be stable. If the JD(U) needs the RJD to win the Bihar election, it can barely anchor a national alliance.
In Kerala and West Bengal, even though you won one and three seats respectively, your vote share was impressive. Is there potential for growth?
In Kerala, our cadre strength and our support have been consistently increasing. It’s never reflected in electoral results, because of a high polarisation between two fronts. A vote for a third candidate was always considered a waste and, therefore, even pro-BJP supporters voted for one of the fronts. That myth has been demolished. Our 15 per cent (BJP plus ally BDJS) of the vote is the first leap in making Kerala tripolar instead of bipolar. In Bengal, it was a self-destructive strategy of the Left. They compromised ideologically and ended up conceding the elder brother status to the Congress. In Bengal, there is a vacuum against the Trinamool… the BJP, having established a State-wide network, has to follow the go-it-alone policy and expand its footprint.
What will be more important, expansion of the BJP or acquiring more allies?
In States where we have expanded our footprint it has helped us, in Haryana, Maharashtra, and in Karnataka earlier. It helped us in Assam…
But in Assam, you had allies…
We had allies in Assam but the continuous expansion made us the senior partner even where we had alliances. This strategy will help us in Bengal, Kerala and certainly Odisha. It’s happened in Bihar, we have become bigger than the JD(U).
Last year, some unfortunate events sparked off a national debate on tolerance, this year on nationalism. Do you feel the second one helped the BJP more?
There were three manufactured debates linked to elections or some event: the church attack [in Delhi], award vapsi, the tolerance-intolerance debate. The three debates are now over and it’s clear, as subsequent events have proved, these were all manufactured issues. Look at the Pune film institute: have we taken even a small baby step towards politicising it? Why was there an agitation going on for months? On the nationalism debate, the Congress shot themselves in the foot by identifying themselves with the ‘ Bharat todo ’ sloganeering and didn’t realise its non-acceptability across the country.
There has been a violent Jat agitation in Haryana, and a Patel agitation in Gujarat. What is the BJP’s current position on reservation?
The party has conventionally supported the idea of reservation based on social criteria.
What about the ferment on university campuses?
This is restricted to some two or three agitations which were actually movements of the ultra-Left.
smita.g@thehindu.co.in
