Opposition parties cooking up stories: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday tore into the Opposition parties calling them "compulsive contrarians".

Jaitley, who is in the US for a medical check-up, took time out to attack the Opposition on various issues such as Rafale, reservation for economically weaker general category in education and jobs, Aadhaar, Justice Loya case, CBI and RBI issues, said the Opposition parties are "manufacturing falsehood" and "subverting democracy".

In his Facebook blog titled 'Compulsive Contrarians', the Finance Minister said, "The Compulsive Contrarians had no qualms about manufacturing falsehood. They could concoct arguments even if they went against the general interest of the country. They could masquerade corruption as crusade. They could adopt double standards whenever it suited them."

Jaitley, said, "Nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigour, not by the compulsive contrarians. Didn't left-liberals find fault with the various actions that Gandhiji took during the freedom movement? Weakening a sovereign elected government and strengthening the unelectable is only a subversion of democracy."

On the 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker general category in education and jobs, which is even opposed by the CPM along with other opposition parties, Jaitley said, "They picked holes in the proposal to give 10 per cent reservation in education and public jobs to the poor, compelling me to comment in the Lok Sabha that this was the first illustration in history where the Communists were obstructing a step taken to support the poor."

"Steps taken against black money were described as "tax terrorism". The virtues of cash which was a source of black money and fuelled corruption were discovered after demonetisation," he said.

Calling AADHAAR "an instrument for saving money" to fruitfully spent for the poor, the Finance Minister said the Opposition is questioning the scheme on the ground of "violating personal liberty."

The Finance Minister said some Opposition parties are even defending the slogans which call for the breaking-up of the country into pieces in the disguise of "free speech".

"The successful surgical strikes conducted by the Army were questioned either as a routine or as a dubious process," he further said.

On the Justice Loya case, the Finance Minister said every fact alleged in the public space by the "compulsive contrarians" were "manufactured". He wrote, "The Judge died a natural death due to a cardiac stroke. The cause of the death was sought to be altered into a conspiracy for murder."

On Rafale issue, Jaitley said, "This is a deal where Prime Minister Modi should be credited with saving thousands of crores of the country. Fake and concocted figures were put into the public domain as the purchase price of the Combat Aircrafts."

Stating that the Supreme Court has "conclusively rejected" the Opposition charges, he said, "The Contrarians were proved to be liars and yet instead of stopping the campaign of falsehood, they started relying on an alleged dictational/typographical error to prove the judgment was wrong."

On the CBI issue, the Finance Minister said, "Whispers of what was going on were not uncommon. It is the duty of the sovereign government to ensure the cleaning-up of each of the investigative agencies."

On the differences between the government and the RBI, the Union Finance Minister said, "There are many instances of the past where government and RBI have had different opinions."

"After all the Government was only addressing the autonomous RBI and asking it to resolve the issues which lay in its domain," he said.