No political witchhunting if NDA comes to power, Arun Jaitley tells Aap Ki Adalat

New Delhi: Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley has said there will be no political witchhunting if the BJP-led NDA came to power at the Centre. He was replying to questions relating to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra in Rajat Sharma's show Aap Ki Adalat on India TV, scheduled for telecast Saturday at 10 pm. The show will be repeated on India TV on Sunday at 10 am and 10 pm too.Jaitley said: “Both Modi and myself have made it clear that we would like the investigative agencies to work in an impartial manner. None of the guilty will be spared and no one should be arrested because of political reasons”. He said this in the context of another BJP leader Uma Bharti saying that if NDA came to power, Robert Vadra would be sent to jail. Asked about Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal expressing his wish to see Jaitley as Deputy Prime Minister, the senior BJP leader replied: “I am not in the race for any post. Badal Saheb is holding a high post. It is his way of patting someone's back. ..I feel we are very close to forming the government.”Asked whether there was any possibility of him becoming the PM as per Plan B of BJP, Jaitley replied: “There is nothing called Plan B. Earlier, people used to say, we would get 160 seats. Then they said, it could be 200. The opinion polls began giving us 200 seats. Now the latest is, somebody project 226 seats for us and nearly 50 for our allies. That means, we will cross the 272 target.“It is no more a question of politics, but mathematics. Our alliance may get between 250 to 300 seats”, he sadded. Asked which post he would prefer in the new government, Jaitley sidestepped the question and remarked: “When one joins a political party, one loses his or her autonomy. You have to accept what the party decides. If it does justice to you, you accept it, if it does not do justice, you smilingly accept it. I will accept whatever responsibility that is given to me.”On charges by his rival Capt Amrinder Singh that he was an outsider and pseudo-Punjabi, Jaitley explained how his family hailed from Lahore, and his mother was born in Amritsar. I have nearly 50 cousins here in Amritsar. “I can't go to my ancestral home in Lahore, so Amritsar is my second home”.On the question of being outsider, Jaitley quipped back: “Tell me, to which state does Sonia Gandhi belongs? I think people who down a Patiala peg raise such questions. I don't accept this changed definition of an outsider. The blood of Majha (region) runs 100 per cent in my veins.”Jaitley said, narco-terrorism was on the rise in Punjab, and the younger generation was falling prey to drugs from across the borders. “We have to beef up security on our borders at least 10 times, and also tackle homegrown drugs through inter-state vigil. Stringent punishment must be given to drug peddlers. We have to create jobs for jobless youths by setting up small and medium industries and promote tourism sector”, Jaitley said. “If the NDA government is formed at the Centre, I will work wholeheartedly to deal with the problems of Punjab”, the BJP leader said.