NEW DELHI: The political slugfest over the economic slowdown go sky-high on Thursday, with finance minister Arun Jaitley striking back at BJP dissenter Yashwant Sinha as a "job applicant at 80".

A day after Sinha laid blame on him of making a mess of the economy; Jaitley defended his track record and continually recommended that NDA was taking significant steps, in contrast to UPA's "policy paralysis".

He also accused  Sinha was the FM when India was looking intently at default in loan repayment with foreign exchange reserves of less than $4 billion in 1991. Similarly, Sinha was finance minister in the Vajpayee government when non-performing assets of banks were at 14-15% of their loans.

The finance minister did not standby either of his critics and predecessors Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram.

In current days, the two have made attacking the government record. Jaitley acted  in response a series of statements made by the two former FMs, including one in which Sinha had charged Chidambaram of getting his phone bugged when he had racked up the Aircel-Maxis controversy. Going hard at Sinha, the finance minister referred to the book launch event he was talking at and said, "Probably a more appropriate title for the book would have been 'India @70, Modi @3.5 and a job applicant @80'."

The book edited by Bibek Debroy and Ashok Malik is titled 'India @70 Modi @3.5'. "I must confess that I do not have the luxury as yet of being a former finance minister. Nor, do I have the luxury of being a former finance minister who's turned a columnist," Jaitley said.

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