Jaitley lashes out at Cong., calls its claims 'baseless'

Adding on to his Facebook post on the Congress Party 'complaining too much', Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday lashed out at the grand old party's claims of not being given an opportunity to form the government in Goa and Manipur, in spite of being the leading party in both the states.

Jaitley called the aforementioned claims 'baseless' and said that the MLAs have submitted letters to the Goa Governer extending their support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in order to form the state government.

To this regard, Jaitley clarified that despite the Congress being the single largest party with 17 seats in the 40-seat assembly, the BJP has gathered 21 seats after the MLAs supported them, which is a clear indicator of the formation of a BJP government in the state.

"The Congress has neither staked claim to form a government nor elected its leader. It is difficult to understand the reason behind the party's retaliation," he said.

Commenting on the Supreme Court's verdict on the petition that was filed by the Congress earlier this week, Jaitley supported the apex court's decision, stating that this would further prevent horse trading.

Speaking on Manohar Parrikar's swearing-in as the Goa Chief Minister, Jaitley said that a procurement report has been filed with regards to expenses and management of safety measures.

"I will start off where Parrikar left," he added.

The recently concluded assembly elections in five states saw the Congress taking centre stage in Punjab with 77 seats in the 117-seat assembly.

However, the BJP established a clear majority in Uttar Pradesh, with 325 seats out of 403, and 57 seats out of 70 in Uttarakhand.

In Goa and Manipur, although the Congress was ahead, independent MLAs and other regional parties in the two states have announced to enter into an alliance with the BJP, thus giving them an opportunity to form the Government.