When former union finance minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party Yashwant Sinham filed his nomination on Monday as the joint opposition Presidential candidate, among those by his side was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Sinha, who used to be one of the tallest leaders in the BJP, has in recent years turned into a virulent critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the Bihar politician, who recently joined the Trinamool Congress and then quit to contest the Presidential polls, hasn’t always had flattering things to say about the Congress and the Gandhi family at its helm.
In April 2013, Sinha said that the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi should ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to put in his papers and hold fresh elections because of poor management of the economy.
“I would like to appeal to Sonia Gandhi that her team of economic managers have performed very poorly. They have not been able to control inflation over the last four years. They have performed so poorly that the only way out of the present impasse is to go for elections,” Sinha told reporters in New Delhi.
Sinha said the country was being “taken for a ride” as it was doing “badly” on the economic front.
“That’s why I am issuing this appeal to Sonia Gandhi. Please tell the Prime Minister to put in his papers. There is no point in continuing this government,” he said.
The same year in August, the BJP launched an attack on the Gandhi family and the Congress over Robert Vadra’s alleged fraudulent land deals, and Sinha led the charge.
“We have many good business schools in the world as well as in India, which teach private businessmen how to earn crores. But in our country we have a very well-connected person who hasn’t gone to B-school but has made crores”, he said in the Lok Sabha.
In February 2014, just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Sinha took a dig at the Congress-led UPA government’s style of functioning, saying Rahul Gandhi was the “new superman” and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a “tragic figure”.
“Sri Rahul Gandhi for UPA government has emerged as a new superman; his every word is a command,” he said at an interactive session organised by BJP’s Karnataka unit.
“How can Dr Manmohan Singh be treated as leader of India when he is not even treated as leader of his own party. I can’t imagine the meeting of parliamentary party which is in government where Prime Minister is not presiding over it but somebody else is presiding it- in this (scenario) Sonia Gandhi,” he added.
Months later, Sinha, in May 2014, launched a scathing attack on the Congress through an article on ndtv.com, in which he specifically targeted the Gandhis.
“When all their shenanigans failed and neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi were able to match the charismatic appeal of Narendra Modi, Priyanka was brought into the fray,” he wrote.
“If Priyanka Vadra is so charismatic, what is preventing Sonia Gandhi from projecting her as her successor in the Congress party instead of Rahul Gandhi who just refuses to gather steam?” he added. “Her emotional pitch as far as the Nehru-Gandhi family is concerned is childish in the extreme. Her understanding of the Indian political situation is limited to nothing more than the tutorials she has received from the Congress party leaders. Her defence of her father represents nothing more than the sentimental feelings of a daughter for her father. But, clearly Priyanka Vadra crossed the red line when she in her retort to Narendra Modi accused him of ‘neech’ politics.”
And with Rahul Gandhi flanking him on Monday, it’s worth remembering that, relatively recently, in 2019, Sinha said the Congress leader should follow through on his decision to step down as the party president or risk losing “public estimation”. Rahul had made the announcement after his party’s disastrous performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which it won only 52 seats.
“If Rahul Gandhi does not stand firm on his resignation, he will lose further in public estimation. Let the party be run by a presidium or any other arrangement at least for some time,” Sinha tweeted on May 30, 2019.
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