Chandigarh: Yashwant Sinha, the Opposition’s nominee for the Indian President post, lashed out at the Modi-led government, saying that it was misusing central investigating agencies to “fix political rivals”.
Addressing a press Conference in Chandigarh he said, In 60 years, I had never seen such a terror of government agencies the way I am seeing today. He said that he stayed in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’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 department are being used so blatantly and shamelessly,” the former Indian minister said.
He maintained that 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,” he added.
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 stated.
Meanwhile, the Indian Election Commission started dispatching ballot papers and pens to mark votes as well as ballot boxes for the July 18 presidential election.
Courtesy: Indian Express
