Amartya Sen raises ‘deep concern’ about democracy after Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as MP
Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen has raised ‘deep concerns’ about Indian democracy amid the uproar by various opposition parties over Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha.
In a letter addressed to Sudipta Bhattacharjee, former Head of Department of Economics at Viswa Bharati University in Shantiniketan, Sen questioned if an opposition leader in India has the right to oppose or not.
“Can it be true that the Leader of the Opposition in India cannot any longer oppose? Can even a minor judicial officer make the task of the highest opposition leaders go away? Where has democracy come to in India?” wrote Sen in the letter.
Sudipta Bhattacharjee, to whom the letter was addressed, told India Today that Sen felt that Indian democracy was in peril.
There has been a massive uproar, especially from the Congress, after Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha after a Surat court found him guilty in a 2019 defamation case when he remarked that “all thieves have Modi surname” and sentenced him to two years in jail.
Following his disqualification, the Congress leader was also asked by the Lok Sabha Secretariat to vacate his government bungalow by April 22.
The ante against Rahul Gandhi has been raised after he constantly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of choosing to keep silent on the Adani row. The Adani Group suffered a massive setback after a US-based firm accused his company of stock manipulation and account fraud.
The Congress leader drew flak after he said that Indian democracy was under attack and the institutions of democracy are compromised while delivering a lecture at Cambridge University.
