BJP believes in crushing, conquering: Yashwant Sinha joins TMC ahead of West Bengal polls

Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha on Saturday joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) ahead of the Assembly elections in West Bengal. A vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sinha had quit the BJP in 2018.

"Our country is going through a strange and perilous situation. The constitutional and democratic values which we cherished for so long are being jeopardised... democratic institutions are being systematically weakened,” said the 83-year-old after joining the party.

The need of the hour is to ensure a “thumping victory” for the TMC in Bengal which will become a catalyst in the defeat of the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he said.

Read | Attack on Mamata was tipping point, says BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha after joining TMC

He alleged that the BJP government wasn't bothered about being accountable to people and that it was going by its own whims due to lack of opposition. "The farmers are agitating on Delhi streets but the government is aloof,” he said.

Claiming that the present-day BJP was strikingly different from the one led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sinha said Modi and Shah only believe in crushing dissent. "Atal ji believed in consensus. He believed in taking people along. But the current BJP leadership believes in conquering people,” said Sinha, who served as the finance minister in the Vajpayee government.

He also said that while Vajpayee believed in the coalition, alliance partners are leaving the BJP one by one under the current leadership.

He also lauded West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her fight against the BJP and said the TMC will emerge victorious in the Assembly elections, "but our job is to take the victory to another level".

The TMC’s win will usher in changes in the 2024 elections and ensure the defeat of the BJP, he added. "It was the attack on Mamata Ji which made me decide that I will join the TMC," said Sinha.

He also recalled the hijack of an Air India plane at Kandahar when Mamata, then an alliance partner of the Vajpayee government, volunteered at the Cabinet meeting to go and meet the hijackers to ensure the release of hostages. It showed that “she had no fear for her life,” he said.