Gopalkrishna Gandhi: CBI has become govt's dirty tricks department

Former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Tuesday said the Central Bureau of Investigation had turned into the Department of Dirty Tricks of the government and a “government hatchet”. He also lashed out at the move to take the premier investigating agency out of the purview of the Right to Information Act, calling such a move a “pity”.

He was speaking at an annual lecture organised by the CBI and had titled his lecture: ‘Eclipse at noon: Shadows over India’s conscience."

According to a report in The Indian Express , the Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer said the CBI would play a big role in india’s future. On granting autonomy to CBI, Gandhi reportedly said he favoured it to be “spectacularly autonomous” and not “sensationally” autonomous.

The CBI should not be under the government at all, he opined, and should instead function under the Lok Pal.

Gandhi also criticised the “frenzy” to bring to India’s helm the reign of an “ethnic majority, sectarian bigotry and denominational autocracy” in the name of “strength”.

According to a report in The Economic Times , Gandhi also launched an attack on ‘Reliance’ and ‘Ambani’, calling the company a “parallel state”.

Incidentally, Gandhi turned down an offer from the Aam Aadmi Party to contest elections a couple of months ago.

He also criticised sections of media who have become “trumpeters” of what they see as the coming change, in remarks seen as a veiled attack on BJP and Narendra Modi.

“Let us realise that the doldrums feeling is true but is true only as a feeling. In actual fact, beneath the surface stillness, there is a great frenzy astir, a frenzy to bring to India’s helm, the reign of an ethnic majority, of a sectarian bigotry, of a denominational autocracy. And all in the name, the very specious name, of ‘strength’,” Gandhi said delivering the 15th D P Kohli Memorial lecture organised to mark the year-long golden jubilee celebrations of the CBI.

“The ship of our nationhood, during these election days, is meant to be moving. But is it moving at all? No one quite knows, no one wants to speculate on where, towards what port, we are headed if we are headed anywhere at all,” he said.

He said “dictators have been wafted up by people voting democratically” and the painted ship will bestir itself into what “I would call Port au Pain”.

Gandhi, who is grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, warned that “this best of times for democracy can become the worst of times for democracy as well.”

With PTI.