Yashwant Sinha slams BJP, says ‘party of the dead’

Yashwant Sinha- former union minister on Wednesday slammed the BJP saying it has become a ‘murdo ki party’ (party of the dead), where only two leaders were ruling the roost, while the others were ‘scared’ to challenge them.
He predicted that there is no possibility of change in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) leadership after its losses in the recently concluded assembly polls.

Mr Sinha said this at the JS Karandikar Memorial Lecture organised at the Pune Union of Working Journalists on ‘Current Political Scenario in India and Media’.

While responding to a question, he said, “There will not be any change in the leadership (of the BJP) because everybody is scared.”

He said in an apparent reference to party chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “Some people in the BJP would often criticise the Congress and dub it as ‘murdo ki party’, but today the BJP has become ‘murdo ki party’…Only two people hold all the power in the party,”

Mr Sinha also rejected speculation that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari would be projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for 2019 Lok Sabha election.

He added, “No one has the courage to go against them, so the theory is rejected that Gadkari has an opportunity.”

While taking a dig at PM Modi saying, “Generally the prime minister is first among equals in Parliament, but today the situation is that he is the boss.”

Mr Sinha was asked if Urjit Patel had resigned as RBI Governor a month ago, he said, “It would have been better had he resigned when the government started the process to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act, but that time did not come.”

Notably, Section 7 of the RBI Act empowers the government to give directions to the central bank’s governor on issues of public interest. Also, Mr Patel, who had a run in with the government over autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India, unexpectedly resigned Monday.

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