Nine Opposition parties write to PM Modi on 'misuse' of probe agencies, slam Manish Sisodia's arrest

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 5

Leaders of nine Opposition parties sans the Congress, DMK and the Left on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging misuse of central probe agencies and Governors to “settle scores outside the electoral battlefield” and said India “appeared to be transitioning from a democracy to an autocracy”.

The Opposition leaders said the trend was “condemnable as it did not bode well for democracy”.

Join sibal’s front

I urge everyone, including lawyers, to join Kapil Sibal sahib’s ‘Insaaf ke Sipahi’. It’s an important initiative & we’ll fight ‘injustice’ together. — Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi CM

“We hope you would agree that India is still a democratic country. The blatant misuse of central agencies against members of the Opposition appears to suggest that we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy,” said the letter signed by Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (TMC), her counterparts BRS’ K Chandrashekhar Rao (Telangana), AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi) and Bhagwant Mann (Punjab), RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, NC chairman Farooq Abdullah, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

The leaders wrote to the PM close on the heels of the February 26 arrest of AAP’s Manish Sisodia in the Delhi excise policy scam, and said the allegations against Delhi’s former Deputy CM “were baseless and smacked of a political conspiracy”.

This is the first time a grouping of prominent Opposition leaders has directly engaged the PM on the alleged “vendetta politics through the misuse of central agencies”, though all of them have individually been raising this issue.

The Opposition leaders further accused probe agencies of “going slow” on corruption cases involving Opposition leaders who joined the BJP, and asked why no agency was investigating a “certain firm’s (read Adani group) financial irregularities despite public money being at stake.” The reference was to the US-based Hindenburg research report on Adani, an issue on which a section of the Opposition has been demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe.

In the three-page letter, the nine leaders alleged that offices of Governors “were acting in violation of the constitutional provisions and frequently hindering the governance of states”.

“They are wilfully undermining democratically elected state governments and choosing instead to obstruct governance as per their whims and fancies. Be it the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Telangana or the LG of Delhi, the Governors have become the face of the widening rift between the Centre and states run by the non-BJP governments and threaten the spirit of cooperative federalism.” The absence of the Congress from an important grouping that jointly petitioned the PM is significant ahead of elections in Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, MP and Mizoram followed by the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Today’s letter follows Mamata Banerjee’s outburst against the Congress and Left following the Sagardighi bypoll loss on March 2 which, she claimed, the TMC lost due to an unholy “BJP, Left and Congress pact”.

Mamata even declared that day that the TMC “would go it alone in the 2024 LS polls”, rupturing the Congress’ plans to prevent a third force in the General Election.

At its Raipur plenary that just concluded, the Congress had concluded that such a front “would only help the BJP”. The nine leaders’ letter also alleged that probe agencies had become “extended wings of the ruling dispensation.”

“The manner in which prominent members of the Opposition have been targeted lends credence to the allegation that your government is using investigating agencies to target or eliminate the Opposition,” the letter alleged, asking why cases against the following politicians did not progress after they joined the BJP — Assam CM Himanta Sarma, TMC’s Suvendu Adhikari and Mukul Roy and Narayan Rane. The letter further alleged that of the total number of politicians “booked, arrested, raided or interrogated by the investigation agencies since 2014, the maximum belong to the Opposition”. In this category, the letter listed Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Sanjay Raut of Shiv Sena, Azam Khan of Samajwadi party, Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh of the NCP, and Abhishek Banerjee of the TMC.

About The Author

Tribune News Service

The Tribune News Service brings you the latest news, analysis and insights from the region, India and around the world. Follow the Tribune News Service for a wide-ranging coverage of events as they unfold, with perspective and clarity.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.

#Congress #democracy #manish sisodia #narendra modi