'People have the right to criticize elected govts'

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday said the people of the country have the right and responsibility to criticize elected governments and attempts to label the criticism against the government as anti-national should come to an end. People would be failing in their duty if they don't criticize the government's wrongdoings, he said while inaugurating the public meeting in connection with the concluding ceremony of the Janakeeya Prathiroda Jatha led by CPM state secretary MV Govindan.
Yechury, who accused Union home minister Amit Shah of spreading false narratives against the LDF government in the state, said the encomiums showered on Kerala by no one else than President Droupadi Murmu on Friday has relieved him of the task of giving a detailed reply to Shah. The BJP government in the Centre and its agencies, said Yechury, were wrongly targeting the LDF government in Kerala as it put forward an alternative model of development to the crony capitalism nursed by the NDA government.
Yechury said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that he has the support of 140 crore people in the country was wrong. "Only 37% of the people who voted in the last Lok Sabha election supported BJP. It means the majority of the people voted against BJP," he said.
Yechury said Modi was claiming credit for the distribution of free ration. "The fact that two third of the country's population cannot survive without free ration is not a credit. Also, this free ration is given using the resources of the country. It's not the charity by Modi," he said.
Yechury said BJP was trying to emulate the old slogan of the Congress that 'India is Indira'. "BJP now says that Modi is India and Adani is India. Anyone who criticises them are anti-nationals," he said, adding that the Centre used the same logic on the BBC documentary on Gujarat violence and Hindenburg report on Adani.