After the elections to the 18th Lok Sabha elections did not give any political party a majority in the parliament, an 'open letter' to Telugu Desam Party's leader Chandrababu Naidu and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, is now doing the rounds of social media, asking the two parties not to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its plans to lead a national coalition.
The letter, drawn up by a group that calls themselves 'Concerned Citizens of India, asks citizens to sign the appeal to the two parties to abandon the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and join the rival INDI Alliance's which will need a substantial number of new allies if it wants to make a bid for power. The letter is on Google Forms.
"Yesterday we saw a historic mandate delivered by the people of India against hate, polarization, terrorism, and religious politics of the BJP. The mandate is also in favour of democracy, peace, unity, fraternity, harmony, progress, growth and the Constitution.
However, as we know the mandate is a little short of the majority mark. Hence this appeal to you and every independent and those constituting the "others" to join/or support the INDIA Alliance for a stable government in and for the world's biggest democracy.," the letter says.
The letter accuses the BJP government that ruled from 2014 of 'robbing the country of its jobs, security, equity, and democracy."
The letter lists what it calls failures of the BJP government, like the reluctance to end the ethnic strife in Manipur, demonetization, GST, Covid lockdown, inflation, and safety. It says that 800 million people are being forced to live on living on government food grants
The BJP, the letter says, is destroying regional parties. The INDI Bloc, consisting of regional parties, is more invested in India's federal structure. This is advantageous to TDP and JDU which are both regional parties.
