Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Friday said that anti-incumbency had ensured that only the Bharatiya Janata Party would win the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, adding that even if the Congress would have fixed a failing economy, the country would have still voted Narendra Modi in as the next Prime Minister.
"The 2014 [Lok Sabha] election was an uphill task for us. Ten years in office and the anti-incumbency is a millstone around your neck. The Congress was in power for 10 years. Even if we had fixed the economy, I am sure the BJP would have won," Chidambaram said, while attending the launch of journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's book '2014: The Election That Changed India' along with present Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday.
"We left an economy with a growth rate of 5.4 percent. I sincerely hope that the BJP can do as well as they say they can during their campaigning," he added.
Chidambaram also said that the much-maligned retrospective tax, which was described by Jaitley as 'the point when we knew the BJP would win', was a mere proposal, adding that he would explain in detail of that period in his book.
"Retrospective tax was a proposal which was only between the Prime Minister [Manmohan Singh] and the then-finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. I think the matter was discussed and what all I know about, I will say in the book I am writing," he said.
During the launch, Chidambaram also refused to answer any questions about Rahul Gandhi, stating repeatedly that the loss that the Congress suffered in the Lok Sabha elections and subsequent state assembly polls was a 'collective loss'. He only commented upon Prime Minister Modi, who, the Congress leader claimed, 'wears his ambition on his sleeve'.
"Obviously, we made mistakes otherwise we wouldn't have lost. This kind of hindsight is easy, but making a decision at that moment is tough. The Modi juggernaut was stopped in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha and West Bengal because there are strong leaders in those states," he said.
When asked if he, under his capacity of Home Minister, had ordered the release of activist Anna Hazare after the Delhi Police had arrested him, Chidambaram denied that the social activist had ever been arrested. He also refuted rumours of Rahul Gandhi having given the order.
"There was no decision to arrest Anna Hazare. The police had merely detained him. And I definitely did not take Rahul's [Gandhi] decision," he said.
