Raghav Chadha Accuses BJP Government Of Weakening India's Democratic Foundations

AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led government at the centre and accused it of rocking the democratic foundation of the country by misusing central agencies. He said that the BJP targets whichever opposition parties it deems strong and misuses CBI-ED teams to harass their important leaders.

Today, nine prominent opposition leaders of the country have written a letter to the Prime Minister against the blatant use of ED and CBI against opposition parties. Among those who wrote the letter are four incumbent Chief Ministers, one Deputy Chief Minister and four former Chief Ministers of different states. This is an unprecedented and significant development.

Raghav Chadha said that the letter makes it clear that the opposition will no longer stay silent as the growing misuse of the agencies is deeply concerning and does not bode well for our democracy. He further added that the opposition had written this letter to the Prime Minister to express concern over the progressively tarnishing image of the agencies in the eyes of the people of India and ask him to stop normalising the weaponization of such institutions to settle political scores.

He also said that by misusing government agencies, the BJP government is trying to eliminate the opposition. "CBI -ED is being used only on the leaders of opposition parties. In fact, 95% of the cases registered by the CBI are against opposition leaders. This politicisation of enforcement agencies is a threat to democracy," he said.

Under its predecessor, the ED raided only 112 places, but the BJP has conducted more than 3000 raids against the members of the opposition. It is important to note that the conviction rate in the cases filed by ED is less than 0.05%. This shows that the ED is more interested in motivated pre-trial arrests rather than investigation.

Raghav Chadha also questioned the conduct of the offices of the Governors in the states ruled by opposition parties and accused them of interfering in the day-to-day functioning of the government. He said that the anti-reform actions of some Governors flew in the face of our democratic spirit and hampered administration.