Charisma of dynasties must be shattered, Jaitley attacks Congress for targeting PM Modi's mother

New Delhi, Nov 27: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched a scathing on the Congress party and blamed the Nehru-Gandhi family for nurturing and promoting the dynasty politics ever since the country attained freedom from the Colonial Rule.

Jaitley took to Facebook to share his blog titled "What was the Name of Sardar Patel's Father"

''The debate whether India should be a dynastic democracy has been ignited by a self-goal of the Congress Party. The Prime Minister's mother's age was made a subject matter of the electoral debate. His father's anonymity was commented upon as an inadequate credential of the Prime Minister,'' Jaitley said this in a new hard-hitting Facebook post.

'The argument given was that if you represent the legacy of a well-known family, it is a political point in your favour. Millions of talented political workers who come from modest family backgrounds would fail by the Congress test of leadership,'' he wrote in the post titled, ''What was the Name of Sardar Patel's Father''.

"This was more than adequately proved in 2014 where most dynastic parties lost miserably. India of 2019 is different from India of 1971. If the Congress Party wants the 2019 elections to be between Prime Minister Modi, who is the son of lesser known parents and someone who is known only for his parentage rather than capacity, merit and competence, the BJP would gladly accept the challenge. Let this be the agenda for 2019," he added.

Citing one example as to how Congress attached no values to a leader like Sardar Patel, Jaitley said, ''upon Sardar Patel's death in Mumbai, Prime Minister Nehru requested many of his cabinet colleagues that the best tribute to him would be to work on the day of his funeral and not go to Mumbai.''

''The then Head of State and several Union Ministers defied the (Nehru's) advice. The proposal for building his statue at Vijay Chowk was rejected. The country had to be satisfied with the installation of his statue at a traffic round-about on Parliament Street,'' Jaitley wrote in the post.

Read full blog here