In his ferocious attack on the government and the economy, Yashwant Sinha was only following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s orders, claimed BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha today.
Shatrughan Sinha, a former actor whose exit from Bollywood has done little to tone down his dramatic flair, said that at a large BJP meeting last week, PM Modi deployed the dictum “country first, party second.”
That, Shatrughan Sinha says, is why Yashwant Sinha tore apart Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, accusing him of placing the economy in an unmitigated “mess” which, he forecast, will get messier before the next general election in 2019.
Yashwant Sinha criticised Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his handling of the economy, which fell to a three-year-low of 5.7 percent in the last quarter.
“I am of the firm opinion that everything that has been written by Mr. Sinha is entirely in the party’s and National interest..”
Yashwant Sinha,79, is former Finance Minister. His editorial in the Indian Express yesterday was titled “I Need to Speak Up Now.” Ministers RajnathSingh and Piyush Goyal countered his criticism, declaring that the world is witness to India’s robust economic growth and that PM Modi has delivered a corruption-free administration, a marked change from the previous Congress-led government.
Yashwant Sinha was sidelined after PM Modi’s victory in 2014 and this is not the first time he has taken on the government led by his party over major economic policies.
Like him, Shatrughan Sinha is experienced in publicly sharing disapproval of the BJP.
“I’m of the firm opinion that everything that has been written by Mr Sinha is entirely in the party’s and national interest,” he tweeted.
“He has shown the mirror on the economic condition of India and has hit the nail right on the head,” he said.
The former minister must be applauded for sharing his frank assessment, he recommended. He then went on to bait his party by posting tweets of tribute to Arun Shourie, who was Yashwant Sinha’s colleague in the cabinet of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and is now a passionate critic of the Modi government.
“Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie are extremely learned and experienced intellectuals. Neither has any expectation or interest in being given a post (or mininstership), especially with the next elections less than 2 years away,” he tweeted.
