Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has lashed out at the Narendra Modi government a number of times and on a number of issues. However, he is not the only BJP leader to have sung a different tune from that of the party and the Modi government.

In a newspaper article published on September 27, the former union finance minister attacked the Modi government's economic policy . He was particularly unforgiving on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and claimed that the economy was heading towards a "hard landing".

Yashwant Sinha, 84, has been a vociferous critic of the Modi government ever since he was not included in the union cabinet after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He took on the party by commenting that all those who are above the age of 75 were declared brain dead on May 26, 2014 (the day the Modi government was sworn in).

Besides the age criterion, the former bureaucrat-turned-politician has been speaking against the decisions which are considered the biggest achievements of the Modi government - such as demonetisation, GST, GDP and the abolition of the Planning Commission.

Yashwant Sinha, father of Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, has also taken a stand opposite to that of the party by favouring a dialogue with the separatists and the Hurriyat in trouble-torn Kashmir.

Besides Yashwant Sinha, some other leaders have also been occasionally hitting out at the BJP and the Modi government.

SHATRUGHAN SINHA

Just like Yashwant Sinha, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha has been a constant and vocal critic of the Modi government's decisions. In the latest episode, he is the only senior BJP leader to have come out in defence of Yashwant Sinha.

The Patna Sahib MP endorsed Yashwant Sinha's views and said the former finance minister was a true statesman and that his comments were in the interest of both the party and the nation.

Shatrughan Sinha also urged Modi to appear before the press and answer real questions.

Even in the past, the actor-politician has embarrassed the BJP leadership by praising and hobnobbing with leaders of BJP's rival parties such as RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar [when his JD(U) was part of the previous Mahagathbandhan government in the state].

Shatrughan has been airing views against the party's official stand. He had gone to the extent of congratulating both Lalu and Nitish for defeating the BJP.

KIRTI AZAD

The cricketer-turned-politician was suspended in December 2015 after he launched a personal attack on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. He alleged financial irregularities in Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) during Jaitley's tenure as its chief.

He argued with Jaitley in Parliament over the issue, provoked him and even called him "napunsak" (impotent) on social media. However, later he claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked.

As revealed by Jaitley, the Darbhanga MP had met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi during the UPA regime, following which the Centre had referred the DDCA matter to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).

LK ADVANI

Senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani has also expressed displeasure over the functioning of the Modi government. However, he has been subtle in censuring the BJP-led NDA government.

Advani was against the elevation of Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections . He had opposed it by skipping the BJP's Parliamentary Board meeting on September 13, 2013 and resigning from all posts of the party.

Advani, who was Modi's mentor at one point in time, mellowed down after the BJP came to power. But on a couple of occasions, he certainly has disapproved of the Modi government's decisions.

In an interview to an English daily in June 2015, he created ripples by commenting that he didn't have the confidence to believe the Emergency would not happen again. The statement was construed by opposition parties as the "first indictment of Modi's politics".

In December 2016, during the Winter session of Parliament, he expressed his displeasure with the Modi government and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan over constant disruption of the House for three weeks.

Advani reportedly said he would speak publicly that the speaker was not running the House and that both sides (treasury and opposition benches) were a party to that.

MURLI MANOHAR JOSHI

Very much like Advani, senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi too was against the projection of Modi as BJP's face for the 2014 general elections. However, he was not as vocal as Advani.

Instead of making them cabinet ministers, the BJP created a new cell Margdarshak Mandal and put Advani and Joshi, besides former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in it.

Joshi, an MP from Kanpur, too has publicly attacked the Modi government. On one occasion, he censured Modi's flagship Namami Gange project to clean the Ganga. He questioned the manner in which the cleaning of the Ganga had been undertaken and said it would ensure that the river "does not get cleaned even in the next 50 years".

Two days after the BJP's humiliating defeat in the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections, Joshi, along with Advani, former Union minister Arun Shourie and RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya had lashed out at Team Modi. After meeting at Joshi's residence in the national capital, the leaders issued a statement, criticising the decision-making process in the party.

The stinging statement warned Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah not to shrug off their responsibility after the "disastrous showing" in Bihar. They ascribed the cause for the defeat to the manner in which the party had been "emasculated".

Demanding a review of the election rout, the veterans warned that this style of functioning had destroyed the consensual character of the party. "This review must not be done by the very persons who have managed and who have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar", the statement added.

What confounds political observers is that despite having uneasy relations with the top brass in the BJP now, Advani and Joshi make themselves available in all party programmes, for instance when Ram Nath Kovind was filing his nomination for the presidential election.

ARUN SHOURIE

Journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie keeps attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At times, his diatribes have proved worse than those of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had called Modi a "coward" and "psychopath".

In an interview last year, he alleged that the prime minister possesses the three personality traits that make the "dark triad" - narcissism, Machiavellian and remorselessness. Shourie accused Modi of running a "one-man presidential" government and expressed fears that over the next three years, there would be "a more systematic attempt to curb civil liberties" and an increase in "decentralised intimidation" besides "choking" of "inconvenient voices".

In the case of both Yashwant Sinha and Shourie, the BJP has debunked their charges, saying they were rants of frustrated leaders.

SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY

Like Yashwant Sinha, Subramanian Swamy too keeps targeting Arun Jaitley. Close on the heels of Yashwant Sinha's criticism of GST, he also flayed the new tax regime.

Swamy said GST should not have been implemented in a hurry. He alleged that the involvement of private companies in the GST Network (GSTN) was leading to harassment.

A few days ago, the Rajya Sabha MP had sought to put the Modi government in the dock for failing to take necessary steps to revive the slow economic growth.

Swamy, who is also known as a maverick politician, has been warning the Modi government on Non-Performing Assets of public banks and of an imminent banking crisis.

In the past, Swamy has directly attacked the then RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and the chief economic adviser to the government Arvind Subramanian. He also targeted Jaitley.

When Jaitley was on a visit to China last year, Swamy mocked him in a tweet. He said the BJP should direct the ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. "In coat and tie, they look like waiters," he posted.

RK SINGHThe inclusion of Raj Kumar Singh, the bureaucrat-turned-politician, in the Modi cabinet in the September 3 reshuffle of council of ministers had surprised political observers.

About two years ago, the first-time MP from Arrah in Bihar had levelled grave charges against the BJP leadership ahead of the state polls. He alleged that party tickets were being sold to criminals. This had immensely embarrassed the BJP and given the Opposition a handle to attack it.

It was Singh, then an IAS officer serving in Bihar, who had arrested Advani from Samastipur and halted his rath yatra to Ayodhya. Later, he went to become the union home secretary during the UPA regime.

However, as luck would have it, Singh is now the Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Power and New and Renewable Energy.

While RK Singh has become a minister and may not speak against the government, the BJP still faces the threat of being targeted by the others such as Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha. Except Azad, it has not taken any action against the others. Perhaps, the leaders are testing the party leadership's patience.

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