India cannot afford a non-politician as PM again: Jaitley

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley today said that India cannot afford a non- politician as a Prime Minister and the world's largest democracy can't be run on the pattern of corporates.
"India cannot afford a non-politician as a Prime Minister ...India must now realise that this whole experiment, (where) you can have corporates running in this manner, you can't have the world's largest democracy running in this manner," Jaitley said addressing top industry leaders at the FICCI annual general meeting here.
He said Prime Ministers are never judged by the number of years they remain in office, but by the decisions they give as far as economy is concerned.

"Prime Ministership is not like an employment. Prime Ministers must always have the last word in a government. Prime Ministers must be the natural leaders of the country, certainly of their own party and the government.
"Prime Ministers can never look helpless. Prime Ministers can never go back with the feeling that I'm not being allowed to deliver," Jaitley said.
Commenting on the UPA style of governance where the Prime Minister did not have the last word, he said, "you created systems outside the normal government and those systems outside were at variance with the directions which are required to be given to the economy."

The opposition leader said the corruption and "policy paralysis" that gripped the present government has hit the "brand India' image internationally and this has resulted in the reversal of the investment cycle.

Calling for restoring and reviving the investment cycle, Jaitley said, "This whole movement will have to stop...All this is hurting brand India, the image of India, the investment image of India and that's where we need a Prime Minister who says this is not acceptable."
The BJP leader also hit out at the UPA for relying on potential "populism" schemes in order to pursue its politics. "I think that myth has been widely demolished," he said reerring to the recent assembly election results where the BJP scored big victories.

"If you thought that you only have only some schemes which you think are extremely popular and that alone will make you win elections, so all the slogans of the recent months have absolutely no impact as far as the electorate was concerned. Because the electorate was looking at something much more, which was effective governance. Which was looking at government with an image," he said.