Leaders of various opposition parties write to PM Modi condemning' misuse of CBI and Governors office'

Hyderabad: Leaders of various opposition parties wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 'misuse of the central agencies and constitutional offices like that of the Governor' to settle scores outside of the electoral battlefield was strongly condemnable as it does not bode well for our democracy.

Leaders of various opposition parties including Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

The letter has names of leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Farooq Abdullah, Mamata Banerjee, Bhagwant Mann, Tejaswi Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and others.

The opposition leaders alleged that the blatant misuse of Central agencies against the members of the opposition appears to suggest that the country has transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy.

Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was arrested by the CBI in connection with alleged irregularity without a shred of evidence against him. The allegations against Sisodia are outrightly baseless and smack of a political conspiracy. His arrest has enraged people across the country. Manish Sisodia is recognised globally for transforming Delhi's school education. His arrest will be cited worldwide as an example of a political witch-hunt and further confirm what the world was only suspecting - that India's democratic values stand threatened under an authoritarian BJP regime, alleged the opposition leaders.

They said that out of the total number of key politicians booked, arrested, raided or interrogated by the investigation agencies under your administration since 2014, the maximum belongs to the opposition. Interestingly, investigation agencies go slow on cases against Opposition politicians who join the BJP. For example, former Congress member and current Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was probed by the CBI and the ED in 2014 and 2015 over the Saradha chit fund scam. However, the case didn't progress after he joined the BJP. Similarly, former TMC leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Mukul Roy were under the ED and CBI scanner in the Narada sting operation case but the cases didn't progress after they joined the BJP ahead of the assembly polls in the state. There are many such examples, including that of Narayan Rane of Maharashtra, they said.

The opposition leaders said that in many cases, the timings of the cases lodged or arrests made have coincided with elections making it abundantly clear that they were politically motivated. The manner in which prominent members of the opposition have been targeted lends credence to the allegation that the central government was using investigating agencies to target or eliminate the opposition. The list of the agencies your government has been accused of using against the opposition isn't limited to the Enforcement Directorate.

It is clear that these agencies have their priorities misplaced. Following the publication of an international forensic financial research report, SBI and LIC have reportedly lost over Rs 78,000 crores in market capitalisation of their shares due to exposure to a certain firm. Why have the central agencies not been pressed into service to investigate the firm's financial irregularities despite the public money at stake?

Further, it appears that there's yet another front on which a war is being waged against our country's federalism. The offices of the Governors across the country are acting in violation of the constitutional provisions and frequently hindering the governance of the state. They were wilfully undermining democratically elected state governments and choosing instead to obstruct governance as per their whims and fancies. Be it the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Telangana or the Lt Governor of Delhi – the Governors have become the face of the widening rift between the Centre and states run by the non-BJP governments and threaten the spirit of cooperative federalism, which the states continue to nurture in spite of a lack of expression by the Centre.

Stating that in a democracy, the will of the people is supreme, the opposition leaders said that the mandate given by the people should be respected even if it was in favour of a party whose ideology was contrary to that of BJP, the leaders said.