CHENNAI: Former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram criticised that the Modi-led government at the Centre is focusing only on Hindi-speaking States on the assumption that winning votes in the States is enough to rule the country.
Speaking at a Congress party meeting here on Monday, Chidambaram said, out of the 11 big States in the country where people know Hindi, the BJP has won nearly 80 per cent of the seats and in the rest of the seven States, the party won only about 20 seats. “So they assume that winning in these States is enough to rule the country and are focusing only on those States. This will have serious consequences on the country,” he said.
Also, he said the BJP government was trying to force Hindi on all the States and highlighted that most communication of the government is only in Hindi in recent days.
Listing out a series of “wrong paths” taken by the Modi-led government, he said power has got highly concentrated in the Prime Minister, which is against the government set-up advocated by the Constitution. “Every decision is taken by the PMO and the secretaries of all the ministries directly get the approval of the Prime Minister and the file goes to the minister concerned only after it gets the approval of the PM. The Constitution has provided for a Cabinet set-up of the government and this presidential style of functioning is against our Constitution, he said.
He listed the projects and new legislation introduced by the new government and claimed that all of them were envisaged by the previous UPA government. “Even 130 days after taking charge, they have not announced any clear policy on internal security and external affairs,” he said.