Cong joins hands based on common ideology, BJP for opportunism: Cong on Jaitley blog

Hitting back at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for his attack on Opposition's mahagathbandhan, the Congress Friday said a "Court Jester" of BJP's 'grand alliance' should be the last one to write any "bogus blogs" on electoral politics.

Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said parties that propped Prime Minister Narendra Modi are now dumping the BJP's "sinking ship".

"BJP's alliances are based on political opportunism, while Congress' alliance is based on common ideology," Surjewala said in a statement issued by the Congress.

He was responding to a blog by Jaitley in which he termed the Opposition's 'mahagathbandhan' a 'non-bandhan', political circus and a recipe for chaos.

Dubbing Jaitley as a bogus blogger, the Congress leader said he should decide on which side of the 'alliance argument' the BJP stands. "If the BJP stands at the mahamilavti (highly adulterated) argument as espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, their argument falls flat, because a 30-member NDA during 2014 became a 42-member alliance in 2019," he said.

If the BJP stands with the argument that 'alliances should happen in the interest of the nation' then too "we should see how the BJP and its alliance partners have treated each other, as the saffron party on various occasions triggered defections in its allies and allied with parties opposite to its ideology", Surjewala further said.

"The BJP has aligned with parties that are traditionally ideological opponents like the PDP. The BJP has broken parties in smaller states like People's Party of Arunachal (Pradesh) and the MGP in Goa to attain power," he said.

Surjewala alleged Jaitley does not understand the nuts and bolts of electoral politics on ground.