Yashwant Sinha Leads Political Coup to Dethrone PM Modi
While Narendra Modi has completed more than 3 years of his 5-year term as PM of India, many believe that he has brought the country to the brink of disaster.
By Rakesh Raman
A former minister in India and rebel BJP leader Yashwant Sinha launched a new political outfit National Forum on Tuesday to expose the crime and corruption in the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Distressed politicians from BJP (including an actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha) as well as opposition parties have expressed willingness to join National Forum.
Although it is positioned as a non-political group, it will campaign against Modi government with the aim to defeat Modi and his party BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Yashwant Sinha – who was expecting a ministerial position in the Indian government that Modi formed in 2014 – was ignored by PM Modi who preferred to handpick only a group of his toadies as ministers.
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Most of the ministers in the current Modi government do not have any qualification or domain expertise in the department they are supposed to handle. As a result, the socio-economic conditions in India have gone from bad to worse and India continues to be an underdeveloped country.
Modi’s Rule in India
While Modi has completed more than 3 years of his 5-year term as PM of India, many believe that he has brought the country to the brink of disaster.
Now it will be extremely difficult for the country to recover from the ruins and in the remaining period of Modi government, India will fall in the graveyard of those poor countries who have almost gone extinct.
In an ongoing RMN Poll, only 18% people say they are satisfied with the work of Modi. While Modi is making false claims about the performance of his government, the people of India have been suffering under his rule.
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During the past over three years of Modi’s rule in India, the country has gone back by almost 30 years. While the religious persecution against minority communities is rampant, unrestrained inflation, dwindling economy, and political corruption have become pain in the neck for commoners in India.
A new “Freedom in the World 2017” report – released by Freedom House, a Washington-based independent watchdog organization – highlights rampant political and bureaucratic corruption in India. It reveals that corruption has a negative effect on government efficiency and economic performance.
“Though politicians and civil servants at all levels are regularly caught accepting bribes or engaging in other corrupt behavior, a great deal of corruption goes unnoticed and unpunished,” the report said in its findings.
Similarly, according to Transparency International, a global anti-corruption group, India’s rank for 2016 is 79 in a list of 176 countries that it has studied. In other words, India is more corrupt than 78 countries.
Unstable Modi Government
Under Modi government, the already deformed democracy in the country has become a plutocracy or perhaps kleptocracy (the rule by thieves) controlled by the corporate bigwigs who hobnob with Modi.
Press freedom is also under threat. Notwithstanding Modi government’s claims of ensuring press freedom in the country, India lost 3 notches to fall at No. 136 in the latest 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Published every year since 2002 by Reporters Without Borders, the World Press Freedom Index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. The report reveals that Modi’s nationalism is a threat to press freedom in India.
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Moreover, India is facing severe poverty. The global hunger index (GHI) report released in October 2017 by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has placed India at No. 100 among 119 developing countries. India’s 2017 GHI score is at the high end of the serious category. [ Click here to see more facts and figures on India. ]
Although Modi cliams that India is a tech superpower, the Digital Evolution Index (DEI) 2017 has placed India at a poor rank of 53 in 60 countries. The Index was released during the recent World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The GDP figures presented by the Modi government are also misleading. According to the Inclusive Development Index (IDI), which measures the economic performance of a country and replaces GDP, India is ranked at a very low position of 62.
This article is part of our new editorial section that focuses on Lok Sabha Election 2019 in India.
In a flurry of tweets today, Yashwant Sinha’s National Forum attacked Modi’s socio-economic policies including the disastrous demonetization decision, confusing Goods and Services Tax (GST), chaotic judiciary, decaying foreign relations, and so on.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. Besides working at senior editorial positions with leading media companies, he was writing an exclusive edit-page tech business column (named Technophile) regularly for The Financial Express (a daily business newspaper of The Indian Express Group).
Earlier, he had been associated with the United Nations (UN) through United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development. He also runs a free school for deserving children under his NGO – RMN Foundation.
Photo courtesy: National Forum
