Yashwant Sinha, the opposition’s nominee for the Indian President post, Tuesday lashed out at the Union Government, accusing it of misusing central investigating agencies to “fix political rivals”.
Sinha was in Chandigarh on Tuesday to meet Congress MLAs led by Congress Legislature Party leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda at the latter’s residence in Chandigarh.
“In 60 years, I had never seen such a terror of government agencies the way I am seeing today. I stayed in Atalji’s government for five years. The infamous Enforcement Directorate, the income tax department etc…it had never even struck my mind to use these agencies to fix political opponents. Those days, there was never such misuse. But these days, both these ED and IT departments are being used so blatantly and shamelessly,” the former Union minister said.
He went on to say: “The election for the 15th President of India is taking place in highly troubled conditions. Never before — not even during the Emergency in the mid-1970s — did our Republic face as many simultaneous threats to the Constitution. The economy is badly mismanaged, creating unprecedented price rise and unemployment.”
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Election Commission started dispatching ballot papers and pens to mark votes as well as ballot boxes for the July 18 presidential election.
According to Sinha, India’s democracy is in grave danger.
“Every institution of democratic governance is being subverted by the ruling party and its government. Agencies like the ED, CBI, Income Tax department and even the Governor’s office are being weaponised to target opposition leaders, to engineer defections in opposition parties and to topple opposition-run state governments. To win elections, the ruling party has embarked on an evil design to communally polarise India’s multi-faith society. This will have perilous consequences not only for social peace, but also for the nation’s unity and integrity,” he added.
“The ruling dispensation’s agenda of one party, one ruler is meant to convert democratic India into an imitator of communist China. This must be stopped,” he said, addressing a press conference.
