Former Union minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, a ferocious critic of the Narendra Modi regime, has been picked by the Opposition as their joint presidential candidate.

The 85-year-old Sinha, who started his career as an IAS officer, entered politics in 1984 by joining the Janata Party. He first came to Parliament as a Rajya Sabha member in 1988 and became the finance minister in the Chandra Shekhar government in 1990. In 1995, he became an MLA in Bihar and again returned to Parliament in 1998 as a member of the Lok Sabha from Hazaribagh (now in Jharkhand).

Sinha won the second term to the Lok Sabha in 1999 and became the external affairs minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He had international exposure as a bureaucrat, serving in the Indian embassy at Bonn (Germany) as the secretary (commercial). He was later shifted to the finance ministry. In 2004, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. In 2009, he won the Lok Sabha for the third time from Hazaribagh but wasn’t given ticket to contest in 2014.

Sinha became a strident critic of the Modi government and went to the extent of joining hands with Prashant Bhushan and Arun Shourie to move the CBI and the Supreme Court for an investigation in the Rafale deal. Sinha has been one of the powerful voices against Modi’s policies — from communalism to economy — and believes that demonetisation was the biggest scam of India. He has also expressed doubts about electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the sanctity of elections in Modi regime.

There is a perception that his son Jayant was not made minister during Modi’s second term only because of his hostile public posturing. But Sinha persisted with his attacks despite becoming politically inactive because of his bad health by writing articles and using Twitter to call out Modi’s failures. He joined Trinamul Congress in 2021 and his candidature for President was strongly proposed by Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The joint statement issued by the Opposition parties said: “We, the representatives of various secular Opposition parties, met in New Delhi on June 15, 2022 and adopted the following resolution unanimously. ‘In the forthcoming presidential election, which is being held in the year of the 75th Anniversary of India’s Independence, we have decided to field a common candidate who can truly serve as the custodian of the Constitution and stop the Modi government from doing further damage to Indian democracy and India’s social fabric.’ At a subsequent meeting held today, we are happy to announce that we have unanimously chosen Yashwant Sinha as the common candidate of the Opposition parties for the presidential election.”

The statement added: “In his long and distinguished career in public life, Sinha has served the nation in various capacities — as an able administrator, accomplished parliamentarian and acclaimed Union minister of finance and external affairs. He is eminently qualified to uphold the secular and democratic character of the Indian Republic and its constitutional values. Ideally, a consensus candidate of the government and the Opposition should be elected for the highest office of the Republic. However, the initiative for this should have been taken by the government. We regret the fact that the Modi government made no serious efforts in this direction. We, therefore, appeal to all the political parties to support the candidature of Yashwant Sinha so that the nation can have a worthy Rashtrapati elected unopposed.”

The statement further added: “India is passing through difficult times. The BJP government at the Centre has failed totally in fulfilling its promises and commitments. Furthermore, it is misusing ED, CBI, Election Commission, governor’s office and other institutions as weapons against Opposition parties and state governments run by them. Therefore, we assure the people of India that the unity of the Opposition parties, which has been forged for the presidential election in a spirit of equality, common commitments and consensus-building through dialogue, will be further consolidated in the months ahead. A committee has been formed to steer Yashwant Sinha’s campaign which will start working from today.”