Law Minister Salman Khurshid, who is under attack from Arvind Kejriwal, feels "an ant" cannot be a challenge to an elephant like Congress and says the activist is having a "pipe dream" of taking the space of big parties by trying to "destroy" them through allegations.
He says that Kejriwal, who faces allegations like foreign funding for his NGOs, should answer these instead of only throwing mud at others. Khurshid has been attacked by Kejriwal over alleged financial improprieties in an NGO run by him and his family.
In a free-wheeling interview, Khurshid strongly refuted charges that he threatened Kejriwal on his proposed visit to Farrukhabad. "Why would I have threatened Kejriwal. What for? What would I achieve? What do you think is his stature, status and personality that I would condescend to take him on".
"He (Kejriwal) is too small,...pathetically small to be in confrontation with our party. An ant does not destroy an elephant...a hundred ants in an elephant trunk will not hurt an elephant," Khurshid told PTI.
To questions whether he thinks that some new entrant in politics could be a beneficiary of corruption controversies surrounding both major political parties Congress and BJP, the Law Minister said, "This is a pipe-dream".
"This is a pipe-dream that some people have that if they destroy everything that exists, parties that exist with a long years of history in a frenzy of unreasonable and senseless attack, those parties will disappear and the field will be clear for them.
"I think this kind of 'destroy all', this kind of 'let us burn everything down' characters, believe that in the ashes will grow a new India and the ashes of that new India will the opportunities to those little groups and parties to come to power. It is a pipe dream," Khurshid said.
While he refrained from endorsing allegations of Congress leader Digvijay Singh about foreign funding of Kejriwal's NGO, Khurshid insisted "all these questions must be answered" and that Singh has collected "lot of good material".
"It is a strange kind of understanding that they can ask questions from anybody and expect answers from everybody but they will not answer questions put to them. Kejriwal should have answered them by now. I answered within three hours of coming back to India," the Law Minister said.
Khurshid also dismissed allegations of irregularities in the land deals of Congress President Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra in Haryana, saying "there is nothing wrong that we need to be shy of...it is wrong for the people to pry into the affairs of a private businessman simply by saying that they are related to somebody."
Khurshid said he knows that the "attack is not on a private businessman" but against his leadership. He also rejected suggestions that controversies over Vadra's land deals has dented the party image.
"Somebody speaks false about you because he hopes that some people will believe it and if some people believe it, it is sad and tragic. But I have full confidence that nothing will stick and nothing will dent...," the Law Minister said.
Suggesting that his statement was twisted out of context on daring Kejriwal to visit Farrukhabad, his Parliamentary constituency, Khurshid said, "If you decide that a story cannot be made without twisting what I have said, I would say run the whole clip and let people judge".
Khurshid said what he meant to say was that when Kejriwal will go to Farrukhabad, he will return with a "response" on his allegations. The Law Minister said that by saying that he will now use his blood, he meant that will use his own blood now to write his story.
"I cannot use somebody else's blood in my pen...I don't speak of violence and hurt. I don't speak of degrading or demeaning someone else," he said, adding "how can I threat?".
