Decades of Congress rule just to hail 'Gandhis' as India's royalty: Jaitley

Launching a scathing attack on the Congress party, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that the decades of Congress rule was just to declare "Gandhis as the only royalty of India".

Jaitley, in a blog post titled 'What was the Name of Sardar Patel's Father', wrote: "Decades of Congress rule, naming colonies, localities, cities, bridges, airports, railway stations, schools, colleges, universities, stadiums after one family was intended to declare the 'Gandhis' as India's royalty."

The blog post comes a day after a senior Rajasthan Congress leader Vilas Rao Muttemwar launched a personal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying that while everybody knows Congress president Rahul Gandhi's ancestors, no one is aware of Prime Minister Modi's father.

Jaitley in the blog said, "India of 2019 is different from India of 1971. If the Congress party wants the 2019 elections to be between Prime Minister Modi, who is the son of lesser-known parents and someone who is known only for his parentage rather than capacity, merit and competence, the BJP would gladly accept the challenge."

The veteran BJP leader also asked the Congress "what is the name of Sardar Patel's father and his wife, adding that "None of my well-informed friends (Congress) had a definitive answer. This is the tragedy of Congress politics and its impact on the nation. Sardar Patel's father was Jhaverbhai Patel and his wife's name was Diwali Ba. No photograph of his (Sardar Patel's) wife or her details are available even after extensive research by modern day historians."

Talking about Sardar Patel's achievement, Jaitley wrote: "Besides being a frontline leader of the freedom movement, he, as the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India, negotiated the transfer of power with the British. He negotiated the integration of India with over 550 rulers. He gave to India, within a short period of few months, its present geography."

"Upon Sardar Patel's death in Mumbai, then Prime Minister (Jawaharlal) Nehru requested many of his cabinet colleagues that the best tribute to the Sardar would be to work on the day of his funeral and not go to Mumbai. The then Head of State and several Union Ministers defied the advice," Jaitley said.

Stepping up his attack on the Congress party, the senior BJP leader blamed the Opposition party for the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir. "The country pays a price for dynastic policies as we have witnessed in several regions. Three families - two of them in Srinagar and one in New Delhi in the last 71 years have played with the destiny of Jammu and Kashmir.