Congress planning to block parliament business: Arun Jaitley

Ahead of the winter session of parliament beginning Monday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday warned that the Congress party was planning strategies to block official business and legislation in parliament,

"The Congress Party had damaged the national economy while in power and wants to pursue the same destructive direction while in opposition." Jaitley wrote in his latest Facebook post.

He had said the same Friday at the Hindustan Times Leadeship Summit here.

The finance minister criticised the Congress over its lack of issues, saying it was unnecessarily making a public debate out of a public sector bank giving credit to a particular business house, in an apparent reference to the State Bank of India's MoU for providing a $1 billion loan to Adani Mining for its project in Australia.

"Since when has the issue of a creditor's willingness to give debt to a borrower become an issue of public debate. It entirely depends upon the debtor-creditor relationship and the credit worthiness of the debtor.This showed a paucity of issues with the Congress Party," he said.

Jaitley further said that without reading the relevant notifications on the Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP), the Congress party had described it as being a boon for black money.

"The notification of the KVP clearly shows identity disclosure at the time of purchase of all KVPs is necessary. If the KVP is purchased for more than Rs.50,000, PAN number has also to be given. It appears that the Congress Party had given reaction without reading the notification," he wrote.

Jaitley also praised Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's successful negotiations with the Americans to resolve the World Trade Organisation (WTO) impasse on the food security issue.

"India's food security programme has been protected from the imperfection of the Bali Draft as a result of the Indo-US arrangement," Jaitley said.