Rajya Sabha leader Kapil Sibal on Saturday announced a new platform ‘Insaaf’ to fight "injustice" prevailing in the country under the BJP-led government, calling on everyone, including opposition chief ministers and leaders, to support him in his endeavour.

Addressing a press conference, Sibal said the new platform was not a political party but aimed to unitedly fight against injustice of all kinds — social, economic, political and legal — and would come up with constructive ideas and suggestions for governance. Lawyers would be at the forefront of the movement, Sibal, a lawyer himself, said.

He said on March 11, he will hold a meeting of the initiative at Jantar Mantar where he will put forward a vision for India. Sibal said it was an open invitation for everyone, including opposition leaders and common people, to join him at the event. 

Elaborating on the “injustice” prevailing in the country, Sibal said eight elected governments had been toppled in the last eight years, making the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution “a defector’s paradise”, even as the courts, people and lawyers were silent. “This is political injustice,” he said.

On economic injustice, Sibal cited that the richest 100 people in the country now had a combined wealth of Rs 54 lakh crore.

On the action against Opposition parties, Sibal said: “The government’s Valentine is the Enforcement Directorate (ED). You set the ED after anyone… you scare them, arrest them, intimidate them, force them to give statements. The CBI cannot enter a state (to take up a case) without the state government’s permission, but the ED can go anywhere. The fact of the matter is we are in a situation where we see a government versus the citizen. We want a government for the citizen, not versus the citizen,” he said.

Accusing the Narendra Modi government of trying to finish off the Opposition, Sibal said that the ED had gone after 121 politicians since 2014, out of which 115 belong to the Opposition.

It’s not just the people of India who were facing injustice in everyday lives, so are political parties, institutions, media, small and medium businesses, he said.

Sibal said he wanted to float a platform to ensure that the people can rise in every nook and corner of the country to fight injustice of all kinds. “The RSS has shakhas in every locality and they spread their ideology. And there is also injustice because of this ideology. So we will fight against that injustice too,” he said.

Image source: PTI