Backed Jadhav throughout, now he sees virtues in RSS: Ramesh

Aditi Tandon

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 26

Among the newly nominated Rajya Sabha members, one is of particular interest to the Congress. Narendra Jadhav, the suave 62-year-old economist-cum-educationist, who took oath today, has had a long history of association with the Congress-led UPA government but entered the Upper House under the BJP rule.

Throughout the UPA tenure, Jadhav occupied prominent positions – first as a member of the Planning Commission (now known as Niti Aayog) and later in the Congress president Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council. And behind Jadhav’s clout through the Congress’ regime was Jairam Ramesh, the former minister, who personally introduced the economist to the UPA government and backed him.

“I was the one to introduce Narendra Jadhav to the UPA government. First, when I was an adviser to P Chidambaram, the former Finance Minister, I recommended Jadhav for the post of Chief Economic Adviser. Later, I had a role in Jadhav entering the Planning Commission and also the NAC. In fact, on the eve of 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Jadhav had almost been named the Congress candidate from Latur in Maharashtra. I had worked for that too,” Jairam said recalling how Latur eventually became one of the 16 seats where the Congress held its primaries experiment and how Jadhav backed out.

Though a little surprised at Jadhav’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha, Jairam said, “In these past two years, Narendra Jadhav has seen virtues in the RSS which even the RSS and BR Ambedkar didn’t know existed.”