New Delhi: Days after a group of ex-civil servants wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over “politics of hate”, another set of former judges and bureaucrats slammed them, alleging their letter was a political and anti-Modi-government exercise taken by them periodically to shape public opinion against the ruling dispensation.
Calling itself ‘Concerned Citizens’, the group said it does not believe the open letter to Modi by the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) — the name of the association of former bureaucrats — had “sincere motivations”.
They said the letter was the group’s way to let out its frustration against the public opinion which remains “solidly behind Modi”, and cited BJP’s recent election wins.
Former Sikkim High Court chief justice Permod Kohli, former foreign secretaries Kanwal Sibbal and Shashank, and former RAW chief Sanjeev Tripathi are among the eight ex-judges, 97 former bureaucrats, and 92 former armed forces officers who have signed the open letter written to Modi to counter the CCG letter signed by 108 former bureaucrats.
“Their ‘anger and anguish’ is not only empty virtue-signalling, they are actually fuelling the politics of hate they seek to combat by attempting to engineer hate against the present government with their patent prejudices and false portrayals,” said Concerned Citizens’.
“That these open letters repeat the same language, have the same tenor and use biased terms with clear ideological moorings speaks for itself.”
The group tried to draw attention towards a striking similarity between the phraseology of the CCG missives and utterances in the western media or by western agencies questioning the group’s intent.
It also called out its alleged “silence” on post-poll violence in West Bengal.
It lays bare their cynical and unprincipled approach to issues, the Modi-defending group said.