From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, July 3: The Opposition sponsored nominee for the Presidential elections Yashwant Sinha has accused the Narendra Modi regime of ‘weaponising’ the ED, CBI, Election Commission and even Governors against opposition parties and has scant respect for the federal structure of the Constitution.

Sinha, the former senior BJP leader and Union Minister, who had joined the Trinamool Congress and has resigned from the party to become the common opposition candidate in the ensuing Presidential elections against BJP’s Droupadi Murmu, attended the State Congress Legislature party meeting held in a private hotel and sought the support of the State Congress leaders.

KPCC chief DK Shivakumar, Congress legislature party leader in the assembly Siddaramaiah and his counterpart in the council B K Hariprasad as well as Congress opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge, Congress deputy leader in the assembly UT Khader, KPCC Working Presidents Saleem Ahmed, Ishwar Khandre and other Congress state leaders were present at the meeting.

Addressing the media later, Sinha condemned the BJP government in Karnataka for “attempting to communalise the minds of the young generation by introducing a new school curriculum coloured by the ruling party’s ideological agenda.’’

In the past eight years, he said the ruling dispensation at the Centre has launched repeated assaults on democracy and secularism, which form the founding principles of our Republic. It has unleashed a poisonous communal propaganda to divide India’s multi-religious society. The Supreme Court has made a stinging indictment of Nupur Sharma’s remarks on Prophet Mohammed, saying “Your loose tongue set the nation on fire.”

“Regrettably, BJP supporters are trolling the Honourable Supreme Court for condemning her remarks,” he said.

Sinha attacked the BJP for toppling the coalition government of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress in Maharashtra “by facilitating the kidnapping of Shiv Sena MLAs to Gujarat and Assam, both being BJP-ruled states. The Centre has no respect for the Federal Structure of the Constitution. It is constantly encroaching upon the powers of States,” he said.

Sinha declared that if elected he will pledge to be “answerable to the Constitution, and to the Constitution alone. I shall exercise my authority conscientiously, without fear or favour, whenever the executive or other institutions break the Constitutional checks and balances,” he said adding: “India needs a Rashtrapati who serves as the impartial custodian of the Constitution — and not a silent or a rubber-stamp Rashtrapati.”

“I shall have no hesitation to restrain the Central government if it in any way aids and abets outrageously undemocratic practices like ‘Operation Kamala’, which was used to destabilise Opposition-ruled governments in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and several other states,” he vowed.

He also asserted that he shall defend the Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech and other rights and freedoms the Constitution grants (with reasonable restrictions) to citizens, regardless of their religion or ideology. “I have also announced that I shall work for the repeal of the Sedition Law,” Sinha said.