Rahul's comment on Adarsh is 'manufactured dissent': Jaitley

Dubbing Rahul Gandhi's utterances on the Adarsh issue as "contrived", Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday said his anger is not natural but "manufactured dissent" and queried why it had been "missing" when the 2G, Coal and Commonwealth scams had surfaced.

"If Shri Gandhi feels so strongly on the Adarsh issue, the guilty must be prosecuted and certainly not be the country's home minister. This anger is not natural, it is contrived. This is a case of manufactured dissent," Jaitley said, referring to Sushilkumar Shinde who has been indicted by the inquiry report.

The Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said that a crusade against corruption has to be a continuous effort and not "sporadic" reactions as made by Gandhi before the media.

"A crusade against corruption has to be continuous and consistent. It cannot be sporadic. It can not be a put-on exercise. Sporadic reactions dramatised before the media are only intended to show oneself as different even though you are still a part of the same cesspool."

He also hit out at the Congress vice president for not venting out his anger over his party aligning with convicted leader Lalu Prasad Yadav. Jailtley also attacked Gandhi for remaining a mute spectator when his government was involved in one scam after another.

He said the Congress Party and its governments have a "scandalous" record on the issue of corruption

In the 2G spectrum allocation scam, where a "monumental loss" has been caused to the national exchequer, Congress has tried to put a lid on the scandal by producing a "spurious" Joint Parliamentary Committee report which carried "no credibility" and exonerated the guilty, claimed Jaitley.

In the coal block allocation scandal, the illegally allocated blocks are yet to be cancelled.

"There is no urge in him to stand up and protest. He remained a mute spectator when day after day scams took place in relation to the Commonwealth Games," he said.

Jaitley felt the first time when Gandhi tore up a piece of paper, disapproving the promises made by other parties during the Uttar Pradesh elections, it was a "solitary incident".

Subsequently, in 2011, he said, during the debate on the Lokpal Bill in Lok Sabha, he suggested a constitutional amendment and claimed that his speech was a game changer.

Jaitley also recalled how earlier this year, after the monsoon session of Parliament, the central government proposed an amendment which would enable convicted legislators to enjoy substantial privileges available to a member of a legislative body.

Gandhi had termed the proposal as "nonsense" and has now disapproved of the Maharashtra government's proposal to reject the inquiry report on the Adarsh scam.