The senior BJP leader said on the leadership issue (in the Opposition block) the situation "looks gloomier" than what he had thought.
Emphasising that Modi factor "writs large across the country" in this Lok Sabha elections, senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said there are "not many takers" for a "failed campaign" of the Opposition.
"To oust a popular government, an extremely popular Prime Minister, you need some real issues, not fictional issues. The Opposition wasted the past two years in a run-up to the polls 'manufacturing issues' which did not exist," Jaitley wrote in a Facebook post two days after the first phase of Lok Sabha elections.
The senior BJP leader said on the leadership issue (in the Opposition block) the situation "looks gloomier" than what he had thought.
Describing the "plight of the opposition campaign", he wrote, "Not having built up a single major issue against the government in the past five years, the strategy is to pick up an issue for a daily tweet or a press-briefing."
The Finance Minister said verbal battles between the Left, Trinamool and the Congress and "now AAP and Congress" are "increasingly visible". "The BSP leader Mayawati, the Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee leave no stone unturned in running down the Congress president," he said.
Terming the Opposition campaign "a Rent a Cause Campaign", the Finance Minister said, "There is no leader, no gathbandhan, no Common Minimum Programme and no real issue. Not surprisingly there are not many takers for a failed campaign."
Jaitley said the Opposition's "false campaign" on Rafale "didn't carry much weight". "Loan waiver to industrialists was a lie, the EVM as an instrument of rigging was a bigger lie," he said.
"One day Pulwama was questioned as self-engineered. The next day Balakot was questioned as a non-existent operation. The anti-satellite missile was passed off as a Nehruvian contribution," he said.
Jaitley added, "One day BJP is accused of whipping up war hysteria, the other day it is dubbed as pro Pakistan. One day the focus would be on the BJP candidate's educational qualification, fully forgetting that a public audit of Rahul Gandhi's academic credentials may leave a lot to be answered."
"One important tactic is being to get some critics of the government in different sections to sign memorandums against the BJP. Even in the 2014 campaign such desperate memorandums were signed. You will always find enough people on either side of the political divide in various disciplines who are willing to sign the memorandum one way or the other," he wrote.
Jaitley said, in sharp contrast, the BJP and its allies are speaking directly to the people through mass rallies, media and social media. "Crores of campaigners are carrying the message of the party and the government to the people," he said. The Finance Minister said BJP president Amit Shah's challenge to the party workers to prepare for a 50 per cent voting target in the BJP stronghold states "seems coming through".
Jaitley said the opposition is in a "disarray in many States" as "alliances having not worked out". A multi-cornered contest will certainly favour the BJP, he said.
'NO SUBSTANCE'
Jaitley said Pulwama was questioned as self-engineered, while Balakot was questioned as a non-existent operation. The ASAT missile was passed off as a Nehruvian contribution, he said.
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