Congress has lost its claim over Vote of India, writes Jaitley

Questioning the ‘Idea of India' propagated by Congress, Jaitley said it was a phrase which was the title of a book written by a leading Indian political scientist, and asserted that in a pluralistic society, every ideological combination, every social group, every economic thinker is entitled to have that ‘Idea of India'.

“Since Congress has claimed a copyright over the ‘Idea of India', it needs to be reminded of what is not the ‘Idea of India',” he said.

The Nehruvian vision on Jammu and Kashmir and the Himalayan blunder of 1962 were certainly not the ‘Ideas of India', Jaitley wrote.

Attacking Congress, he said losing territory to Pakistan and China during the Nehruvian regime, “dictatorship” of Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, superseding the judges in the name of a judiciary with social philosophy and censoring newspapers, were not his ‘Idea of India'.

“The 1984 massacre of Sikhs is not my ‘Idea of India'. Scandalous deals like Bofors, HDW submarine deal, bribing MPs in JMM case and the cash for vote scam, 2G spectrum scandal, coal block scandal are not my ‘Ideas of India',” he said.