From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Aug 30: Former Union Finance Minister Yeshwant Sinha launched a frontal attack on Narendra Modi-led NDA government over the arrest of five activists for alleged links to the Communist Party of India-Maoist and said the “present regime is outdoing the Emergency of the Congress party of 1975 under Indira Gandhi by creating Emergency like situation.”
He said the arrests of human right activists was “draconian’’ and reminded one of the dark days of emergency.
Sinha said the Modi government has compromised “every institution of democracy - the investigating agency (CBI), parliament, judiciary, media, RBI, Election Commission. All pillars of democracy are weakened never before.”
“The present regime is outdoing the Congress party of 1975 under Indira Gandhi. She declared emergency suddenly one midnight. But the present emergency is an undeclared excess. What the present regime has shown is that you can create an emergency in this county without necessarily declaring emergency. This is that art which has been mastered by the present regime,’’ he said.
Sinha, who has become a vocal critic of the Modi government and who has left BJP after a long stint, hit out at both Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
He said, “only two people are running the party and the government together and the entire country knows that. So, the rest do not matter.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation which has been criticized as the “Congress Bureau of Investigation (CBI) then, now it has become the Modi and Amit Shah Investigating Bureau”.
On the alleged over controversial Rafale fighter jet deal with France, Sinha demanded a forensic audit by CAG within a stipulated time period.
“There is a demand from the Congress party that there should be a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which should examine this deal. We know that this Lok Sabha is in its last days, so the JPC will never function,’’ he said.
Moreover, as the JPC would be headed by the ruling party MP, Sinha said it would not bring out real truth.
“I would suggest the audit which the CAG was supposed to take up, it should be a forensic audit and it should be completed within three months and the findings should be placed before the nation,’’ he said.
The former Union Finance and External Affairs Minister also criticized the Make in India programme of the Modi government and termed it as “empty slogan.’’