The incessant attack by Subramanian Swamy against his party colleague and the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, and key civil servant has not gone down well with the BJP top brass.
There are reports that Jaitley has asked for disciplinary steps to be initiated against the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP for his recent outburst against him and the Prime Minister’s chief economic advisor, Arvind Subramanian.
Swamy had recently asked for the CEA to be sacked as he had allegedly lobbied against India before being hired by Narendra Modi government.
He had then launched indirect attack against Jaitley calling him a ‘waiter.’ He had later clarified that his waiter jibe was not targetted against Jaitley’s suit and tie that the finance minister wore during his China trip.
According to a report in Indian Express, Jaitley, upon returning from China on Monday, expected to ensure that Swamy’s outbursts stop against him and the CEA.
A close aide of Jaitley reportedly told Indian Express, ” One can’t dismiss the threats issued by Swamy on Twitter simply by calling them his personal thoughts. Swamy is also a member of the BJP.”
Swamy, when asked to adopt measured tone against his party colleague, had said on Twitter that there will be a bloodbath if he did away with discipline.
Swamy had also said that he didn’t really care much what Jaitley said or he didn’t say.
What’s astonishing that no senior BJP leaders have come forward to issue an official statement condemning Swamy’s statement and supporting Jaitley even when the episode has has embarrassed the saffron party. This is puzzling more because Jaitley has always been perceived as effective number two in the government.
Leaders owing allegiance to Jaitley are hurt that the party had left Jaitley alone when Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had corned him on the issue of corruption in DDCA last year. According to them, the party has left Jaitley to fight his battle alone against Swamy’s whose politics is being being termed as ‘poisonous’ within the BJP.
What’s perplexing them is the silence maintained by Modi and the BJP President, Amit Shah. This has led the BJP rivals to conclude that Swamy’s action had the PMO’s blessings and he was merely functioning as a proxy for Modi and Shah.