The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday described former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s comments against the government as “treacherous,” and said that these activities were “reaching the tolerance point,” IANS reported.
Party leader GVL Narasimha Rao said Sinha was glossing over his own performance, and called him someone who is always seeking a job. “While claiming to be a ‘know-all’ economist, Yashwant Sinha is conveniently glossing over his own disastrous performance as a finance minister, when he pledged India’s gold overseas [in May 1991],” Rao said.
He added: “He has turned [into] an unabashed apologist for the corrupt, inflationary, anti-poor and disastrous economic governance of the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, a party in which he has found a new ally to seek his next job.” Rao said it remains to be seen “what a jobless Rahul Gandhi can offer an ever job-seeking Sinha”.
Sinha, at Congress leader Manish Tewari’s book launch on Thursday, said that he was “beyond caring” about the BJP taking action against him.
“Dar (fear) and democracy don’t go together,” Sinha declared. “If there is an atmosphere of fear, we have to get out of it. We should stand up for democracy… if need be, we should do so together.” He said it would be the best day of his life if the BJP initiated disciplinary action against him.
He responded to Union minister Arun Jaitley who had remarked that a disgruntled Sinha was looking for a job, and said, “I am 80 years old…there may be an age bar for a government job but there is no age bar on fighting for freedom.”
His criticism of demonetisation
Sinha has been creating political ripples since he wrote a column on September 27 criticising the government for the decline in India’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate and described the Centre’s demonetisation drive as “an unmitigated economic disaster”. The former finance minister had said that despite low global oil prices, Jaitley had failed to use the extra finances to revive the economy.
But his son, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, had dismissed articles “drawing sweeping conclusions” on the Centre’s economic decisions the very next day.
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