India has moved from cooperative federalism to coercive unilateralism — Kapil Sibal

Kolkata, July 16 (PTI) Former Congress leader and MP Kapil Sibal on Saturday said the country under the BJP rule has moved from cooperative federalism to “coercive unilateralism”.

Condemning a recent order that said MPs cannot conduct any protest action in the precincts of the Parliament House, he stated that “this is unacceptable”.

Sibal, who had quit the Congress a few months back and is presently an independent Rajya Sabha MP, said the federal structure has been diminished and the “Constitution has been defaced just for the sake of power and only power”.

“The planning commission where the states could place their views and demands have been replaced with NITI Aayog. The process of dialogue and discussion is totally absent. We have moved from cooperative federalism to coercive unilateralism,” Sibal said while addressing a seminar on federalism – “The Discourse 2022”.

The former union minister said the “politics of the Centre” is ruling the states instead of the Constitution.

“Office of the governors and the central agencies have turned into a long arm of the government,” he said.

Later, while talking to reporters Sibal criticised the recent order to ban protests in Parliament.

“A day might come when they might ask us that we need to stop protest across the country,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the programme here.

Demonstrations, dharnas and religious ceremonies cannot be held in the precincts of the Parliament House, according to a circular issued by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, which has drawn the ire of the opposition even as Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has insisted that such notices are being issued for years.