"Anyone who has reported this, has completely misunderstood what I have said and has done injustice to me," Sinha said, slamming the media.
After reports quoted BJP leader Yashwant Sinha saying that PM Narendra Modi and his government would meet the same fate as the Indira Gandhi-led Congress govt after the Emergency, the senior politician has denied having made the comment.
"I was taking part in a discussion yesterday, the subject of which was 'Is dialogue dead'. I started by saying that consensus is the soul of democracy and consensus can be achieved only through dialogue. And therefore, dialogue cannot be dead in a country where democracy is strong and thriving," he explained.
He added that he went on defending this position. "When some people referred to some cases of intolerance... I reminded them of imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi and I said that people of this country taught her a lesson in 1977. Because it is not in our spirit to be intolerant, it is not in our spirit to stifle dialogue. Therefore, both democracy is alive and dialogue is alive. That is what I said." he said.
"Anyone who has reported anything else, has completely misunderstood what I have said and has done injustice to me," Sinha said slamming the media.
Sinha, who was finance minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, was reported to have commented without naming Modi, "...the people of India will consign him to the dust, you just have to wait for the next elections."
Alluding to the general elections in 1977 when Congress was ousted from power, he said such a neglect (of dialogue) will make the government last "19 months", the same duration as the Emergency. "We all know how the people of India reacted to the Emergency which was the "most concerted democratic effort in our country to still the voice of dissent," he was reported to have said.
He had also said that under Vajpayee, the NDA government was able to pass several important legislations with the help of dialogue with opposition.
His onslaught came on the same day when another BJP leader, actor-MP Shatrughan Sinha, said that veteran leaders Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi "deserve much more than what they have been given". "Currently these leaders including me are trapped between oppression and respect," Shatrughan said in Pune.
With agency inputs.
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