Arun Jaitley: Mahagathbandhans are tried, tested and failed ideas

Arun Jaitley. Pic/PTI

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday termed "mahagathbandhans" in India as tried, tested and failed ideas, saying if such an alliance is formed again, then 2019 will be a contest between a stable government led by a strong leader and an "anarchic combination".

Expressing confidence about the BJP's win in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he said this is not a time for India to test an anarchic kind of combination when it is on the growth path.

Giving historical accounts of "mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) in India, Jaitley said, "You tried it under Chandra Shekhar, it was partly tried under VP Singh, it was tried under Charan Singh and it was tried under IK Gujaral and Devi Gowda. It's an experiment where policy gets killed and the longevity of the government is a few months."

"So, these (mahagathbandhans) are tried, tested and failed ideas much that they sound very fancy. In order to have a big alliance, you must have a large nucleus and smaller groups aligned around them. You cannot have a nucleolus of a handful of people and you cannot have an alliance of political parities whose interests are regional," he said.

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