Jaitley Mocks Congress, Cpi-M, Frowns at Dynasty Politics

Kolkata, Jan 8 (IANS) Ridiculing the CPI-M and Congress over talks of a possible alignment, union minister Arun Jaitley on Friday derided dynasty politics in the country and harped on need to improve quality of politics.

Delivering a lecture on "Future of Parliamentary Democracy" at a college here, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader wondered if a "few families controlled the balance of power".

"There are two states in the country with revenue deficit, one is Bengal and other Kerala. You can very well find out what is common to both the states," said Jaitley referring to the twin states where the Left Front had been power.

Taking a jibe on the speculations of a probable alliance between the CPI-M and the Congress, he said: "The CPI-M finds a principle in everything. They can find out principles in deciding whom to oppose or with whom to align.

"Those who destroyed Bengal and those who destroyed the country, are now gesturing to each other and at least, are trying to make eye contact and come together."

Talking on the issue of attracting investments, Jaitley said the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal needed to establish its trustworthiness.

"Policies moving towards one direction are required, there is a need for politics to be courteous, then people will invest.

"Even the Trinamool government here, it needs to decide its path, and a trustworthy image of the state needs to be created. Even if a different government comes here, it needs to create an image of trustworthiness," he said.

Earlier addressing Aat the Bengal Global Business Summit, he had blamed the Marxists for Bengal and Kolkata no more being the hub of industrial activity in the country.

"If we are not in a position to attract that investment, we will be destined to what happened in Bengal for three-and-half decades.

"If investment dries up and starts moving out, there will be no jobs, revenue, there will be hardly any growth and probably we will only have some shallow political slogans to lean back on," Jaitley said in an obvious reference to the Left Front which was in power for 34 years before being overthrown by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in 2011.

Later speaking at the St Xavier's College here, Jaitley called for improving the quality of politicians across the board and take care of dynasty democracy.

"What happens to parliamentary democracy when a large component becomes dynasty democracy? In the last few decades it is particularly visible and not only at the centre. Other than two or three parties such as the Left and our party, most of the parties practice dynasty democracy," he said.

"Looking at both houses of the parliament, I ask myself, are 15 families controlling the balance of power," he said.

He also expressed his anguish over the continuous logjam in parliament.

"We have become a noisy democracy. Our parliament has become excessively shrill. Disruptions prevent legislations to be passed. This is where the parliamentary system will have to find a solution because we can't have a system which will meet a traffic jam," he said.