New Delhi:
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley has said that there is nothing wrong in doing work to sustain your family while practicing politics. He was reacting to allegations levelled by Team Kejriwal that BJP chief Nitin Gadkari's business interests have been growing since he took over as the party president.
Speaking to NDTV's Sonia Singh on
Your Call, Mr Jaitley said that activists cannot make wild allegations and many of the claims against Mr Gadkari are factually wrong.
Watch the full show on Sunday at 9:30 pm. Here are the excerpts from the interview:
NDTV: Is Mr Gadkari a businessman first or politician first?
Arun Jaitley: I anticipated this problem in my own case. So the day I became the Leader of the Opposition, not only I stopped my practice, I surrendered my licence lest I be accused of identifying myself for or against a particular litigant in court. I took a safer option, but then I had contrarian argument: How do Indian politician sustain themselves? Must they detach themselves from their profession, from their jobs, from their businesses completely and then depend on politics for livelihood? Many people may have learnt the art of living well without earning (but) there are still some who haven't and therefore I have all my sympathy for politicians who on the side do some remunerative work in order to sustain their families. There is nothing wrong in it. People all over the world do it and in India politicians officially are not paid much, that they can afford to sustain every situation. But then you are right - once you do that, you run the risk of being before the firing squad. Issues of conflict of interests throw up a suspicion. Now that the question you were raising - I don't know the facts as it - but let me just give you the possible answer. If contracts are legitimately given and these are honestly implemented - well something happened ten years later therefore there is shadow of suspicion - now that may be too far-fetched a charge. Therefore, somebody has to really look into this in order to say whether there is any unfairness or not.
NDTV: Would you tell Mr Gadkari that perhaps he should reconsider his business interests given that he is now heading for his second term as BJP president?
Arun Jaitley: No, why should I tell him that? In fact there are lot of people who have business... can I answer this question by putting a question?
NDTV: Yes.
Arun Jaitley: Let's forget Mr Gadkari or others. How does an Indian politician sustain himself? Are we only going to pick up people from the queue outside the employment exchange and say please join politics, we only need unemployed people in politics. Or are we going to see people who have distinguished themselves in various fields - in fact one of the bane of Indian politics is the achievers in different fields are not coming and therefore, if achievers come in - today you had Mr Parasaran as the member of the Rajya Sabha, you had Fali Nariman as the member of the Rajya Sabha, you have other distinguished people who are nominated at times parties also elect...
NDTV: Also about equivalence that in a sense undercutting the BJP's anti-corruption campaign?
Arun Jaitley: I will tell you, I like people to be objective. If anyone in BJP is guilty of misdemeanour, or a corruption then please hang them. But you can't make wild allegations. Now that lady who came and started this campaign against Mr Gadkari, I was carefully following what she said. Mr Gadkari is not involved in irrigation scam, but because he didn't take up the issue and Prakash Javdekar and Kirit Sommaiya of BJP took up the issue against Ajit Pawar and others, so Mr Gadkari is guilty of being in collusion with Mr Pawar. Now that...
NDTV: She claims that she met him and he told her that...
Arun Jaitley: ...according to me, Mr Kejriwal and the lady would have been much better off carrying a campaign against the irrigation scam rather than campaign... she says other BJP leaders are campaigning but Gadkari told me that others are doing it, my party people are doing it, I don't get into Maharashtra issues.
NDTV: No, she claims that she met him and he told her that I do business with Ajit Pawar and I won't intervene.
Arun Jaitley: Obviously I do attribute a bit of common sense to Mr Gadkari that he is not going to tell a lady he is meeting for the first time that I'm a business partner and therefore I won't do it, obviously that's factually wrong so he couldn't have said it. But that apart, please look at the substance of allegations; every allotment of land is not a scam. You may have legitimate allotment of land also, therefore, if you have a sugar factory or a cooperative sugar factory, you have a cane area and you empower 2.5 lakh farmers in that area, which is otherwise a suicide zone for farmers, and the state government says as a laboratory to creating a sugarcane in this area, we give you some land for the purpose of 11 years so that you actually start plantations in that area.