BJP's Subramanian Swamy has targeted top aides to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Highlights
- Subramanian Swamy privately asked to 'zip up' volley of attacks
- Finance Minister upset with Subramanian Swamy's attacks
- If Swamy is punished, he may not be bound by party rules: sources
Controversial BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has privately been warned to "zip up" after a volley of attacks
seen as targeting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, said sources in the party today.
They added that Mr Jaitley's meeting with the PM on Tuesday is not linked to the scandal commissioned by Mr Swamy, who was nominated by his party to the Rajya Sabha in April.
Mr Swamy has, in the past, advertised his own suitability for Finance Minister.
Recently, he claimed credit for "Rexit" - the surprise decision by Raghuram Rajan to not seek a second term as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Mr Swamy, in letters to the PM, claimed that Mr Rajan's green card exhibits that he is "mentally not fully Indian" and that his refusal to drop interest rates has "wilfully" hurt the economy.
Last week, Mr Swamy, 76, flagrantly used Twitter
to attack Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, who is the top aide to the Finance Minister, accusing him of siding with the US in a row over intellectual property rights before he joined the government.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley "looked smart" in suit in China, said Subramanian Swamy.
Mr Swamy's criticism met with
a rare return of fire from Mr Jaitley, who told reporters that it is unfair to attack those in government "whose discipline and constraints of office restrain them from responding". In a tweet, the minister also countered Mr Swamy's ire against another aide, Shaktikanta Das, describing it as "an unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant" in the Finance Ministry.
But Mr Jaitley, sources say, had indicated to his party his discontent over BJP spokespersons refusing on record to chastise Mr Swamy, whose opinions have been stressed as personal by BJP president Amit Shah.
Sources say that a section of the BJP is convinced that Mr Swamy must be reined in because the spectacle he creates with his targeting of officers is detracting from the image of the government as focused on development and delivery of governance. However, they say, action against him would allow the opposition to claim that the BJP is a house divided, while also giving Mr Swamy more ground to attack individuals because he will then not be obliged to follow party rules for discipline - an option Mr Swamy alluded to in this tweet on Friday
Over the weekend, Mr Swamy said his remarks on politicians wearing western clothes abroad coming across as waiters had been misinterpreted as a putdown of Mr Jaitley, who was photographed in China wearing a suit. Mr Swamy's clarification is seen by some within the BJP as the result of a message to shift into neutral urgently.