Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari today said BJP's failure to fulfil its election promises was forcing the party to indulge in "spurious" debates on nationalism and identity politics.
"Why before 2014 election no one in India was anti-national or unpatriotic? Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't come to office on a nationalistic impulse. The campaign of the BJP was development and growth.
"What you see today is a very spurious brand of identity politics. And the reason for this is that the government of the day has failed to deliver on its promises ... The reason is jobless growth that we have got in or the economy is almost down to a new Hindu rate of growth," Tewari said at the launch of his book, 'Decoding a Decade: The Politics of Policy Making'.
Speaking at the conference centre, Tewari said barring violence whatever is happening in the country today was a "regular occurrence" at the time when Congress was in power.
"The tragedy of today is that things are turning violent. Otherwise, conflicting points of views in university smacks of vibrancy in the campus," he added.
Talking about the book, which is a compilation of articles written from 2006 to 2016, Tiwari said a major part of his new work constitutes a critical analysis of the current government.
Asked whether the politician writes in a partisan manner, he said, "It might appear one because of the perch where I sit on, not otherwise".
"I have not become more partisan because of the criticism of the current government which constitutes the majority of what is the substance of the book.
"I am saying this because if our government was doing the kind of things that have been playing out for the last 33 months. My position would have been no different," Tewari said.
Observing that being in power has its own "tranquilising effect", Tiwari said it was akin to ploughing a lonely furrow once thrown out of power.
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