Advise govt on legislations: Jaitley to India Inc

Mumbai: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley has asked the corporate sector to advise the prime minister rather than to the Opposition to evolve consensus over passage of important legislations in Parliament. “How do I co-operate with a government which has decided not to do anything. You should write to the prime minister before writing an open letter to us (Opposition),” Jaitley said at the Express Adda, during an interaction with representatives from the trade and industry in Mumbai on Tuesday.[caption id=“attachment_186571” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley. PTI”]  [/caption] Corporate India should have same standards for judging Opposition and government, he said. “The prime minister should be asked if there is consensus within the UPA,” he added. According to him, it was up to the government to initiate consensus between itself and the opposition. “However, this government has two kinds of ministers – arrogant or sulking. Only finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has made efforts to build consensus with us,” he added. Jaitley charged that there has been a decline in government leadership. “There is lack of ability to take obvious decisions. This regime has lost credibility because the prime Minister gave clean chits to everybody against whom charges of corruption were levelled,” he alleged. The BJP leader said his party decided to support the Pension bill and the government too accepted some minor changes suggested by it. “However, the government immediately withdrew the bill because of pressure from within the alliance,” he said. Jaitley said opposition to Goods and Services Tax (GST) is not party based, but inability of the Centre to give comfort level to the states. “It is not a political problem that is holding GST back. The Centre should not alienate the states,” he said. The BJP leader said the UPA track record in getting all states on their side is not good and added that in non-Congress states, governors have held up half a dozen legislations while highways have been designed to by-pass certain states. He said the corporate sector should not act as salesmen of the government. When asked about the anti-politician mood in the country at the height of the Anna Hazare agitation, Jaitley said he was in agreement as well as worrying about it. “The image of an ugly politician sticks because that contribution has come from within the fraternity in the recent months. The silver lining according to me is that in the last few months, most of the chief ministers cutting across party lines, who have been re-elected are the ones who governed well and had a relatively clean image,” he added. PTI