Yashwant quits BJP, says he will work to save democracy
FORMER UNION MINISTER MADE IT CLEAR HE WOULD NOT JOIN ANY OTHER POLITICAL PARTY
One of India’s best known politicians, former finance and foreign minister Yashwant Sinha, quit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was undermining democratic institutions.
Sinha, who served as a minister in the first BJP-led governments headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has frequently spoken out over how the Hindu nationalist party has evolved since then.
‘Grave danger’
“Democracy in India is in grave danger,” Sinha said, announcing his decision to quit at a meeting of a new political action group attended by several opposition politicians in Patna, the capital of the northern state of Bihar.
“I have had a long association with the BJP. Today I am severing my ties with the BJP,” the 80-year-old leader announced at a meeting in Patna.
It was attended by Opposition leaders from the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), besides dissident BJP leader and Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha.
Sinha, however, made it clear that he would not join any other political party.
“I am announcing from this ■ platform that four years back I had quit electoral politics. Now I am taking ‘sanyas’ from party politics,” he said.
Representatives of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress were also present at the meeting hosted by ‘Rashtriya Manch’ (National Forum) that Sinha had formed on January 30 as an “apolitical forum” to highlight the alleged “anti-people” policies of the Centre.
“I am not going to be a member of any other political party,” Sinha said. A bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sinha said that he would launch a strong movement to “save democracy” in the country.
Sinha, who has been at loggerheads with the party leadership, alleged that democracy was under threat under the present government.
Aged 80 and no longer active in electoral politics, Sinha has criticised the Modi government on a range of issues, most recently through an open letter published earlier this week. In that letter, Sinha urged the prime minister to speak and act more forcefully on vital issues.