BJP making India a police state: Manish Tewari

NAWANSHAHR: Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari on Saturday said that the BJP led National Democratic Alliance government appeared to be planning to turn the country into a "police state".
"The NIA Amendment Bill will lead to abuse of power and return of the draconian laws which will turn the country virtually into a police state," he said while attending a function at village Jadla near Nawanshahr.
He held that the NDA government had completely undermined the Right to Information Act with obvious intention to hinder transparency in the functioning of the government.
"The way the government has hastened through to get the legislation amending the RTI Act passed, revealed its ill intentions", he said, adding, it was a regressive step that would take the country backwards in terms of enforcing transparency and accountability of the governments in power.
Replying to another question, Tewari strongly disagreed with the suggestion that there was any disillusionment among the party workers. He maintained that the Congress government in the state led by Captain Amarinder Singh had actually made a difference in the lives of people and the results had started showing up.
"Ten years of the Akali-BJP misrule had undermined all the institutions and the state had been pushed to bankruptcy", he said, while claiming that not only Captain Amarinder managed to redeem the situation but also took several welfare measures like farmers' debt relief, generation of jobs and curbing the scourge of drugs in the state.