NEW DELHI: Days after a group of former bureaucrats wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern over “politics of hate”, another set of former judges and bureaucrats slammed them and alleged their letter was a political exercise undertaken periodically to shape public opinion against the ruling dispensation.
In an open letter to the PM on Saturday, 197 eminent signatories 8 retired judges, 97 retired civil servants and 92 military veterans describing themselves as ‘concerned citizens’, hit out at the Constitutional Conducts Group (CCG) saying it did not have “sincere motivations” and that its letter was the a way to let out its frustration against the public opinion which remained “solidly behind Modi”.
Former Sikkim High Court chief justice Permod Kohli, former foreign secretaries Kanwal Sibbal and Shashank, and former RAW chief Sanjeev Tripathi were among the 197 signatories. “Their ‘anger and anguish’ is not only empty virtue-signaling, they are actually fuelling the politics of hate they seek to combat by attempting to engineer hate against the present government with their patent prejudices and false portrayals,” said the ‘Concerned Citizens’.
“The CCG should not give ideological cover to anti-national outlook as well as religious and Left Wing Extremism, which they seem to do. These former civil servants should not be orchestrating a false narrative of ‘colorable’ use of state power.” The open letter further stated that the “so-called intellectuals and their backend international lobbies” wanted to halt India’s progress.
Questioning the CCG’s silence on post-poll violence in West Bengal, the signitaries to the open letter said the “studied silence of this so-called CCG on unprecedented postpoll violence in Bengal” reflected their “cynical and unprincipled” approach to issues.