Sparks fly as Yashwant Sinha flays Arun Jaitley on economic mess'

New Delhi: Veteran BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday mounted a scathing attack on his own government’s economic performance in an opinion article published in an English daily. It was titled, I need to speak up now. 

In the article, Mr Sinha said flayed finance minister Arun Jaitley for the economic “mess” in the country, and wrote, “I shall be failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister has made of the economy. I am also convinced that what I am going to say reflects the sentiments of a large number of people in the BJP and elsewhere who are not speaking up out of fear.”  

Union home minister Rajnath Singh tried to downplay Mr Sinha’s scathing attack. “The whole world admits that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. No one should forget this fact. In the matter of economy, in the international arena, India’s credibility has been established,” he said.

In his brutal article, Mr Sinha wrote, “The Prime Minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters… Bluff and bluster is fine for the hustings, it evaporates in the face of reality.”

A gleeful Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, while sharing Mr Sinha’s critique, tweeted, “Ladies & Gentlemen, this is your copilot & FM speaking. Plz fasten your seat belts & take brace position. The wings have fallen off our plane.” 

Mr Sinha’s attack came a day after BJP MP Varun Gandhi questioned the government’s policy on Rohingya refugees in a newspaper column. 

The Congress fielded former finance minister P. Chidambaram to build on Mr Sinha’s charges on Wednesday. He began by thanking Mr Sinha for speaking “truth to power”. “Yashwant Sinha speaks truth to power. Will power now admit the truth that economy is sinking?” he tweeted. 

Targeting the government, Mr Chidambaram claimed that the Modi-sarkar was completely “clueless about what is causing the economic decline” and then asked, “How long will the government hide behind the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the slogans of the party?”

Seething Jaitley loyalists claimed that “it was Mr Sinha’s frustration speaking” when he took pot-shots at him for losing Lok Sabha polls and yet managing to corner the coveted berth.