"The situation of Congress is that now its entire politics has come down to whether its a recognised opposition or unrecognised opposition," Jaitley said in a programme here.
He questioned whether Congress had given the recognition of Leader of Opposition to any political parties from 1952 till most of the time when political parties were short of the majority mark.
He said the previous UPA regime did not have the courage to take decisions.
"The previous Congress governments did not have the courage to take decisions, where when you are running a country at times you have to take hard decisions," he said.
More From This Section
Jaitley said the decision to raise railway fares was taken by the previous UPA regime and was implemented by the new government.
"So when the decision was implemented by us then Congress raised questions why the fares are raised. My question is it was the decision taken by Congress, but was implemented by us. Because the question was whether you want to save the railways or not," Jaitley said.