Expectations put high burden on new government: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Tuesday said the burden on the new government was going to be higher because people have huge expectations from it.

Participating in a debate on the motion of thanks on the president's address in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley said the results of the Lok Sabha polls showed that Indian democracy is maturing.

"The burden on our government is going to be much higher because people expect us to do more," he said.

Taking a jibe at the Congress, Jaitley said they started believing their own propaganda.

"Governments, when they spend hundreds of crores, fall in the trap of believing their own advertisements," Jaitley said, responding to Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad's allegation that the president's speech was a copy of the Congress programmes and that it had already done 90 percent of work in most of the programmes highlighted by the new government.

"They (Congress) were believing their own propaganda. If you have done 90 percent of what has to be done, we have to do very little."

"Verdict against you (Congress) is not because people were angry about the balancing 10 percent work, it is about the state you left the country in," Jaitley said.

He also said there was nothing like copyright of ideas, and that policies were made for the same people.

Jaitley also said the election showed that Indian democracy was now evolving.

"These elections showed, perform or perish. Only caste will not help... people want governance. Those who thought political leadership does not grow on merit but only on family, who relied on dynasty have suffered a serious setback... those who used phrases like consolidation of particular caste or community, vote bank politics, again suffered a set-back," he said.

"Indian democracy is now evolving... We gained because of anti-incumbency, we also gained because of being beneficiary of faith expressed in us and our leader Narendra Modi."

Jaitley said the devaluation of the office of the prime minister was to be blamed for the poor state of the Congress.

"In a parliamentary democracy, office of the prime minister is most accountable. Unless you give such a man the right to have the last word, the government can't stand. You cannot have bodies outside the government and make them more powerful than the council of ministers," he said.

"When letters after letters were being written on the 2G spectrum allocation, the prime minister should have had the last word. When there was nepotism in coal block allocation, he should have stepped in," he said referring to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.