‘How Can Jaitley Be Better Than Me’: Subramanian Swamy on Being FM

Swamy also said Mehbooba Mufti-led J&K government should be dismissed at an event on Saturday.

Subramanian Swamy thinks he can make a better Finance Minister than Arun Jaitley.(Photo: Reuters)

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is at it again.

Swamy said he believes he can do a better job at being the Finance Minister than the incumbent Arun Jaitley.

“I am an economist. He is a lawyer. How can he be better than me?” Swamy, whose antagonism for Jaitley is open, said at the India Today Mind Rocks Summit on Saturday.

Swamy’s relentless criticism of former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan was also at play when he directed his jibe at Jaitley.

Swami’s comment came after AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi commented that inflation would have been in check had Swamy been the Finance Minister.

“There has been a fight between southern Brahmins and northern Brahmins for long,” Swamy later quipped.

On being asked by the moderator whether BJP has imposed a gag on him, Swamy took a dig at Jailtey again saying, “There is no gag order on me. Your problem is that you talk to Jaitley a lot.”

Asked whether he will fare better than Rajnath Singh as the Home Minister, Swamy said, “Rajnath is my friend. He is the best Home Minister after Sardar Patel.”

In September last year, there were rumours doing the rounds that Swamy was being considered to take up the post of the Vice Chancellor of Delhi’s Jawahar Lal Nehru University.

Swamy also shared his enlightening views on the current government in Kashmir.

According to Swamy, the Mehbooba Mufti government in Jammu and Kashmir should be “dismissed” and President’s rule be imposed in the state.

He alleged that the PDP-BJP coalition experiment has “failed” while adding that military might was necessary to quell the protests.

During the noisy debate, Swamy branded Owaisi an “anti-national”, triggering loud cheers from the crowd, overwhelmingly consisting of youth waving mini tricolours.

“If we go by modern science, the ancestors of Indian Muslims were Hindus. If a Muslim is not ready to admit it, then he may be a patriot, but he will be an anti-national... Owaisi is rashtra-birodhi (anti-national),” Swamy said.

(With inputs from PTI.)