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Friday’s blistering attack by journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie, one of their own until recently, has left both the National Democratic Alliance government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) largely nonplussed, with party leaders on Saturday indicating they would rather not keep the controversy “alive”.
Few, barring ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, either in the government or the party were willing to criticise Shourie for his diatribe on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in an interview with Karan Thapar on Headlines Today. But off the record, many of them told journalists Shourie’s was a case of sour grapes, as he hadn’t been included in the Modi Cabinet.
The party fielded its junior-most spokesperson, Sambit Patra, to rebut Shourie, while the seniors said they would rather not comment on the issue. Patra, just out of college when Shourie was disinvestment minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, called him a “fair-weather friend” of the BJP.
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More seasoned party leaders said the BJP would rather give the controversy a quiet burial than keep it in the headlines by constantly commenting on it, and that statements by Sitharaman and Goyal should suffice. The assessment within the BJP was the government and the party would have more to lose by engaging in a slugfest with Shourie.
Commerce minister Sitharaman and coal and power minister Piyush Goyal, both part of a crop of leaders groomed by Jaitley, criticised Shourie. Both made their mark within the party when Shourie was semi-retired from active politics.
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On Shourie’s criticism that the government and the party were being run by the trinity of Modi, Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah, Sitharaman said it was only natural that senior leaders would run the party, with the PM being the first among equals. “Shourie as a scholar, a veteran journalist and a political observer, has always had his views on matters. But I think this time, he has been a bit unkind to Mr Modi…(it is) disappointing that conclusions are being drawn in such a short span but the BJP was open to suggestions by Shourie,” Sitharaman said in Hyderabad.
She lauded 73-year-old Shourie for his scholarship. “Every book he has written is well researched, even the footnotes. So, his saying such false things is really sad,” she said, adding Shourie didn’t take a holistic approach when criticising the government. She faulted Shourie for his assessment that the government’s economic policies were directionless. “To say that the government, particularly on economic matters, is directionless is, well, off the mark and highly disappointing,” she said.
Goyal was more forthright, saying Shourie’s criticism stemmed from his non-inclusion in the Cabinet. “If some individuals probably have some grouse, they don’t get some positions and want to make issues out of non-issues, I think they are best left to judge whether they are saying the right thing,” he said.
He added the government had shown that with the sincerity of purpose and visionary leadership of the PM, India was on the path to growth. Goyal said it was surprising that Shourie was making statements on the coal block auction without any basis, that the overall auction money of Rs 1.9 lakh crore would be realised from 29 mines through their lives.
Patra said, “There are many fair-weather friends. Friends who try to gatecrash into the party when the going is good and turn hostile when this attempt to gatecrash fails...Not only is the international community standing with the policies, not only investors but statistics also say the policies of this government are in keeping with the kind of promises we had made during our election.”
Apart from Shourie, another former BJP member, veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani, has been critical of the government, on the issue of unaccounted money stashed abroad.
