Congress has nothing to sell or show to the electorate: Jaitley

New Delhi: Hitting out at Congress for 'decrying' its opponents, BJP on Thursday said the ruling party was doing so as it has nothing to sell or show to the country's electorate ahead of Lok Sabha polls.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley. AFP

Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley slammed Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Law Minister Kapil Sibal for attacking BJP and the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

"The party may choose to decry its opponents as salesmen and showmen. Regrettably, the Congress Party has nothing to sell and certainly nothing to show to the electorate of this country," he said in an article.

Attacking Sibal for describing Modi as a 'salesman' and Arvind Kejriwal as a 'showman', Jaitley said Sibal and the Finance Minister have not only overlooked the fact that Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Goa were today regarded as one of the better administered states where the GDP growth is much higher than the national average even though three of them were considered as 'Bimaru'.

On Chidambaram, he said he was expected to market the Indian economy before political and trade leaders of the world gathered at Davos, but he chose to hit out at BJP instead.

The BJP leader said while the Finance Minister chose to speak about BJP and Modi at Davos, his utterances coincided with rating agency Moody's India report that says "the industry is today waiting for a political change led by Narendra Modi for a major turn-around to take place".

On the Finance Minister's admission that his party goes into elections as an underdog, Jaitley said, "Congress may end up getting its lowest figure in the history of Indian parliamentary elections."

Replying to Sibal's poser to Modi on why he was quiet on B S Yeddyurappa's entry in BJP, Jaitley said the moment the chargesheet was filed against Yeddyurappa, the party asked him to resign that caused a split in its Karnataka unit and eventually cost it the state government.

He said that Yeddyurappa has unconditionally joined BJP and the party has not offered him any position.

Giving a contrasting picture, Jaitley said Congress has decided to enter into an alliance with a convicted Lalu Prasad Yadav and shield its former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan from prosecution by refusing to grant sanction.

He accused Congress of being involved in big corruption cases like 2G spectrum and coal blocks allocation, and alleged it was unable to take action against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh against whom "unlawful gratification through cheques stands established".

In an apparent reference to Robert Vadra's land deals, he reminded Sibal of business transactions of sons and sons-in-law of his leaders and charged his party of giving a government which he termed as the "most corrupt".

Jaitley said the enthusiasm of investors in Indian economy has disappeared and a reverse flight of capital has increased, with inflation and corruption causing a rout of Congress in the recent assembly elections.

"Leadership of both the party and the government is perceived to be non-inspirational," he told Sibal.

PTI