Samikhsya Bureau
He had been quite vocal about Modi’s policies while still being a ‘margadarshak’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party. After quitting the BJP in April, former finance minister Yashant Sinha had stepped up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At the forefront of the raising the issue of alleged Rafale scam, he has left no stone unturned to “expose” Modi for allegedly taking the country to the brink. He has all along maintained that Modi will find it difficult to sail through the 2019 general elections because of his “anti-people” policies like demonetisation.
Sinha is now feeling vindicated with the defeat of the BJP in the assembly elections for three major states – Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. He claims that the BJP will get less than 200 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections. “The 2019 elections are dicey to begin with and people have seen through the bluff and bluster of the prime minister. The loss in byelections, Lok Sabha byelections, the loss in the states, is an indication of the disillusionment of the people,” Sinha told The Hindu.
Now Sinha’s recently released his book, India Unmade: How Narendra Modi Broke the Economy, is creating waves. The book is a critique of the economic policies of the NDA government headed by Modi. In the book, he has slammed Modi on demonetisation, unemployment and allegedly fudged GDP figures.
Modi’s lasting legacy, he said, would be a catastrophe called demonetisation. While claiming that the demonetisation is the biggest bank scam, the book says that the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India is in danger.
The note ban caused large scale job loss and, Sinha said, that the prime minister’s claim of a man being self-employed by selling pakoda was nothing but a joke. Sinha writes in the book: “Had the prime minister instead spoken about a carpenter becoming an entrepreneur, people would have taken him seriously. But the mighty pakoda is such a thing that it only evoked derisive laughter. Also it was a distraction from the more serious issue of unemployment and underemployment.”
In his book, Sinha has highlighted the role of power sector in the slowing down of the economy. The book claims that the power sector non-performing assets (NPAs) are over Rs.1.75 crore. Hinting at another scam?
Sinha is a man to be watched in the run up to the 2019 general elections.
