Amritsar: An indicator, perhaps, of the close race that the Punjab election 2017 is turning out to be, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is known for predicting elections in his own manner, shied away from calling the Punjab elections in favor of his party here on Saturday.
Replying to a pointed question during a press conference at Amritsar, Jaitley said,”I cannot predict the elections. Let the results come out, you will get to know.”
In his earlier remarks Jaitley, however, commented that he was confident of the SAD-BJP regime doing extremely well in the elections and ensuring a continued era of further peace and development.
Jaitley had earlier correctly predicted the General Elections 2014 in favor of the BJP with reduction in Congress party numbers to double digits.
Coming down hard on Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had claimed Jaitley as his political guru not so long ago, he said that Sidhu had let the Amritsar constituency down by remaining absent from his constituency and the parliament. “Amritsar has had the misfortune of having an absentee MP for the last 12 and half years and therefore has remained neglected,” he said.
Jaitley stuck to his usual election spiel about BJP emerging as the largest party in the country. He said that the Congress was gradually being relegated to the margins of the political ecosystem in the country. “They are now present in only 5 – 6 states,” he said.
The Union Finance Minister attributed the rise of BJP to the ability of his party leadership to take decisions in the right directions to propel the nation forward. In particular, he singled out the government decisions to go in for surgical strikes and demonetization as two factors that would help BJP win elections. He called BJP the most disciplined party in the country “with hardly any rebel candidates in Punjab and Goa elections.”
In this context, Jaitley said that two of the Punjab BJP rebels, viz Master Mohan Lal and Raghunath Rana, who had turned against the party had withdrawn their candidature and would now be supporting the BJP candidates.
Jaitley said that the Congress party had pushed the state into an era of violence whereas the Akali-BJP government has ensured peace and pushed the development agenda.
The minister listed four factors, viz popularity of Central government, development work done by the Punjab government, a divided opposition and the clean image of the BJP candidate Mohan Singh Chhina working in favor of Akali-BJP government in Punjab elections and Lok Sabha by-elections.
Jaitley was in Amritsar campaigning in favour of Mohan Singh Chhina, the BJP candidate for Lok Sabha.
In his remarks on reservation, in the light of comments by RSS preacher Manmohan Vaidya, Jaitley said that the reservation was the right way to remove inequalities.