CPM politburo member and former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar on Thursday said the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lacks internal democracy.
“The NDA has set a target of winning 400 seats in the Lok Sabha elections with the BJP itself targeting to win 370 seats alone, leaving only 30 seats for the 32 non-BJP partners”, he said, while addressing an election rally in South Tripura’s Belonia.
“We don’t have any problem with that. It is up to the NDA partners what they think of BJP’s target. But if the target materialises, then how will democracy sustain? If the BJP returns to power, this will be the last election in the country”, he said.
Criticising BJP’s Hindutva ideology, Sarkar termed the demolition of the 500-year-old Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh as an act of injustice.
“Actually, the RSS-backed BJP has been persistently trying to attack the secular fabric of our constitution to install a one-sided rule in the country”, he said. Sarkar questioned the construction of the new Parliament House, stating that no MP had demanded it.
He argued that the existing Parliament building had sufficient space and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of prioritising personal glorification through the inauguration of the new Parliament building instead of addressing the nation’s fundamental issues.
“The old Parliament has enough space. No MP had ever demanded to build a new Parliament building. Modi wanted to glorify his name by inaugurating the new Parliament ignoring the basic problems of the country”, he said.
Arunachal candidates
Twenty-three candidates in the fray for the April 19 Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh, have criminal cases registered against them, according to a report of a civil society organisation.
The report prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Arunachal Pradesh Election Watch, which was released on Wednesday, revealed that out of the 23 candidates with criminal cases in the northeastern state, 20 have declared serious criminal cases against them in their affidavits.
The report was prepared after analysing the self-sworn affidavits of 142 out of 143 contesting candidates in the Assembly polls.
The affidavit of BJP candidate Ratu Techi, who won from the Sagalee constituency unopposed, could not be analysed due to the unavailability of his clear and complete affidavit on the poll panel website, the report said.
In the 2019 Assembly polls in the state, out of 184 candidates analysed, 29 had declared criminal cases and 26 have declared serious criminal cases against them.
