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Rahul's jibe: 'Fair & lovely' scheme in Budget

NEW DELHI: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday took a dig at Congress vice-president over his Lok Sabha speech and said "the more I hear Rahul Gandhi , the more I start wondering how much does he know — when will he know”."As one evolves from a young to a middle-aged one, we certainly expect a certain level of maturity," Jaitley said in a Facebook post reacting to the Congress vice-president's remarks that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not consult his senior ministers on policy issues."If Rahul Gandhi is to be believed, then Sushma Swaraj is not consulted on the Pakistan policy, Rajnath Singh was unware of the Nagaland accord and, presumably, I am unware of the Budget proposals," Jaitley said.Slamming the UPA model of governance, the finance minister said "the Prime Minister should be the natural leader of the party and the government. In the NDA it is so. The UPA was quite different.""Rahul Gandhi’s views are shaped by the environment of a political party which has evolved into a ‘crowd around a family’," Jaitley said."The UPA model of governance was that if a person outside the family is the Prime Minister, he should be reduced to being a figure-head. Given a choice between a ‘hands-on’ Prime Minister or a ‘nominal’ head, I would unhesitatingly choose the former," he said.Stating that the Prime Minister should lead by example, Jaitley said, "the present Prime Minister not only works hard and involves himself in the functioning of the various departments of the government, but inspires his team to work harder than we would have normally.""Each one of us, whether the external affairs minister, the home minister or myself, are responsible for each important decision taken by each one of our departments. We do not bypass the Prime Minister who is always available for consultation and guidance," he said."After hearing Rahul Gandhi, I think India has made the right choice between the Prime Minister who leads the government and a Prime Minister who is merely implementing decisions taken elsewhere," Jaitley said.