Bengaluru: Former Union Minister, Yashwant Sinha claimed on Tuesday that the country was in an Emergency-like situation as all democratic institutions, including the bureaucracy, judiciary, the Election Commission and the media had been compromised.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the Modi government had shown that Emergency could be imposed in a country without it being declared. "The opposition's voice is being silenced using institutions like the CBI, ED, IT and other government agencies. In other cases, it is through defamation cases filed through private parties. Nothing is being allowed to be published in the media and even the judiciary has delivered some unfortunate decisions prohibiting the publishing of certain reports," Mr Sinha maintained.
Referring to the arrest of five activists in Pune, he said he strongly condemned it. "Whenever the BJP cannot answer certain questions, it makes the issue personal," he charged. Claiming that internal democracy was dead in the BJP, he said the entire country was being run by only two people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president, Amith Shah.
"Even the cabinet has been compromised and all the decisions are being taken only by the Prime Minister.
The cabinet members have been reduced to such insignificance that the External Affairs Minister is now merely a Twitter Minister while Mr Modi makes most of the foreign trips and decisions on foreign policy. The Defence Minister was ignorant about the signing of the Rafale deal and the Finance Minister was kept in the dark about demonetisation. Worse, the Home Minister was not aware that the BJP was withdrawing its support to the PDP in Kashmir,'' he alleged.
Calling Mr Modi's "Make in India" an empty slogan, Mr Sinha said that it was not reflected in any sector. “First, you have to make India and then Make in India will happen by itself. If the government is interested in Make in India, then why was HAL kept out of the Rafale deal?" he demanded.
