New Delhi
Despite the BJP tactically fielding son Jayant Sinha —junior Aviation Minister in the Modi government — to counter him, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha today stuck to his guns over the country’s state of economy.

He, in fact, took the fight to another level by directly targeting PM Narendra Modi over his “inaccessibility”. As he presented views publicly, not just on the country’s economy but also the current leadership of the party, the biggest loser in the free-flowing gamut of expressions and counter-expressions appeared to be an unusually silent BJP.

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But in words that speak volumes over the way the party and the government is functioning at present, Sinha said PM Modi had “no time to meet” him, hence he had no option but to air his views through a newspaper. At another platform, he said: “I sought an appointment a year ago. Should I be sitting in protest outside his house? No one is willing to listen to us in the government and the party.” Meanwhile, joining issue, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha (also a known baiter of the current party leadership) “hoped and prayed that all those who matter in our party ponder over what has been said”.

On a day his own son Jayant said “these articles (perhaps referring to the one written by his father) draw sweeping conclusions from a narrow set of facts”, Shatrughan Sinha said Yashwant Sinha, “one of the best and most successful Finance Ministers of the country”, has “shown a mirror on the economic condition of India and has hit the nail right on the head”.

“Expectedly, motives are being ascribed to his observations and we all know that the infamous and pervasive dirty tricks department is behind the dirty tricks,” Shatrughan said.

Many observers felt the strategy to launch Jayant to counter his father was a loss of face for the party and the government as Yashwant Sinha did not mince words to question why then was he shifted out of the Finance Ministry. Notably, Jayant, who was a junior minister in the Finance Ministry headed by Jaitley, was shifted to the Aviation Ministry in the 2016 Cabinet reshuffle.