Unholy alliance of corrupt won’t work: Prakash Javadekar

HRD minister Prakash Javadekar says the Congress-JD(S) alliance cannot be a model as its only ideology is to hide each other’s corruption. In a conversation with TOI’s Manash Pratim Gohain, he said JD(S) had promised to probe the Siddaramaiah government for graft and that is obviously not going to happen now that the two are sharing power. Excerpts:

What is the reason for BJP falling short of majority in Karnataka?
We went up from 40 seats to 104 while Congress dropped from 122 to 78. So, it was their defeat and our victory. It’s also a fact that we didn’t cross the halfway mark but our victory is that BJP emerged as the biggest party and this is the picture of new India.

Would an earlier round of campaigning by the PM have made a difference?

The PM has done a tremendous job and Amit Shah too made successful strategies and every ‘karyakarta’ worked very hard.

Was there any tacit prepoll understanding with JD (S)?
There was none. In fact, they got 37 seats, three less. We have got new seats from new areas. The issue here is that we should have got a few more in the Bengaluru city area.

The way Congress and JD (S) came together, it can be seen as...
This is a most unholy alliance. It is an alliance of ‘corruption understanding’ where the core is a surrender deal by Congress only with the condition that their misdeeds should not be inquired into and no files should be opened.

There is a possibility this might become a sort of political model...
No, I don’t think so. Is there any purpose? Is there any ideology? To hide each other’s corruption cannot be the ideology and that is what they are actually practising. And, therefore, that will never survive. The Prime Minister’s approval rating after four years in office is 60%.

What will BJP put forward as its 2019 agenda?
The main achievement has been corruption-free good governance. What we mean by good governance is empowering the poor. More than 7.5 crore toilets and 3.65 lakh villages becoming open defecation free is no mean achievement. Over 3.8 crore women who used chulhas now have LPG connections. There is employment generation across sectors.

There is a lot of debate on employment generation.
In every sector, employment has increased. We are creating employment in crores.