‘They fear losing Bihar, and the domino effect’

He is not one to mince his words. When former bureaucrat and Union finance and external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha speaks, he does so plainly, clearly and bluntly. Alert as ever, the veteran politician took time off for a brief conversation with Herjinder on the impact of Trump’s tariffs, on ‘vote chori’ and much else. Excerpts:

On 27 August, America’s 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods came into effect. What impact do you foresee?

The economic impact is already visible. The government tried hard to project that nothing would change, but that claim has fallen flat. We are now hearing reports of industries shutting down — Tiruppur is closing, Noida is struggling, Surat is in trouble. Agra, Kanpur, Coimbatore — all are facing difficulties. Sectors like textiles, leather, pharmaceuticals and marine products are going to be hit very hard. Exports to the US will collapse. Finding alternative markets is not so simple.

This will inevitably push up unemployment. As people lose jobs, their purchasing power declines. That, in turn, reduces consumption, and the ripple effect will soon spread to other industries and regions across the country. What we are witnessing is extremely serious, but large sections of the media are busy trivialising it.

What about the political fallout?

Over the past 12 years, Prime Minister Modi has invested more in building ties with the United States than with any other country — especially with Donald Trump. He would often say, “My friend Donald Trump”.

But all that ‘investment’ now appears not just wasted, but counterproductive. For reasons of his own, Trump seems very angry with Modi, and the country is paying the price for that anger.

What could be the reason for Trump’s anger?

Take a simple example. Trump once publicly rebuked Zelenskyy. Now imagine he wants to do the same with Modi, but Modi refuses to even take his call. Naturally, Trump’s irritation only grows — he wants to scold him, but Modi won’t give him that chance.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he stopped a war between India and Pakistan. But since the Simla Agreement, it has been India’s consistent policy — under every government — that no third party will be allowed to intervene in our bilateral matters with Pakistan. Despite this, there was a sudden ceasefire between the two countries, which took the nation by surprise. Trump has been boasting that he brokered it, while Modi has chosen to remain silent.

Modi had options: he could have said outright that Trump is wrong, or at least issued a polite clarification. But he said nothing. You might recall that foreign secretary Vikram Misri eventually read out a statement — oddly, in Hindi. Why not in English? Perhaps he thought they wouldn’t understand. But everything gets translated, and so the message reached them anyway. That silence and miscalculation only made matters worse.

As a result, Modi is now caught in a bind. His standing within the country is weakening, and his foreign policy has taken a severe hit. The consequences of this — both political and diplomatic — will become clearer in the days ahead.

These days, some unusual developments are taking place in the country. The entire BJP IT cell, for instance, seems to have turned against the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Vantara is being investigated. Almost every other day there’s some new trouble for the Ambanis. Is the government’s equation with industry beginning to shift?

Look at the two biggest industrial houses — Ambani and Adani. Both have been Modi’s ATMs. But now something has changed, and the media here has largely suppressed it.

A few days ago, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent made a very significant statement regarding India’s crude oil imports from Russia. He pointed out two or three critical things. First, that while India earlier sourced less than one per cent of its total oil imports from Russia, that figure has now jumped to 40 per cent. Our foreign minister tries to deflect [this] by saying China buys more oil from Russia than India, but that isn’t accurate. China’s imports merely went up from 13 per cent to 16 per cent, whereas ours skyrocketed.

Bessent further said that this cheap Russian crude was routed to one industrial group, which bought it at low prices and resold it in the international market at higher rates — reaping an estimated profit of $16 billion.

The key point is that ordinary Indian consumers never got the benefit of these lower prices. All the gains went to a single industrial house. And now, naturally, the other group feels left out and angry. That’s where the rift between the two began.

At the same time, reports are emerging of friction within the government itself — between (national security advisor) Ajit Doval and S. Jaishankar. Notice the family connections: Jaishankar’s son Dhruv heads the ORF in Washington, while Doval’s son Shaurya is associated with the India Foundation. This has only sharpened the rivalry.

The way things are shaping up — with action against Anil Ambani and even Vantara — it appears that the Ambanis are no longer the government’s preferred choice. Adani is.

Until recently, many believed it was the EVMs that were being hacked. Now it looks as if the entire Election Commission has been compromised. Where is this heading?

Discrepancies in voter lists are not new. I’ve contested several elections myself, and it was common to find a few irregularities — some names missing, some added, some duplicates. But those were minor issues, never large enough to alter the outcome.

What we are seeing now is on an entirely different scale. The Bihar election has become a matter of political survival for the NDA. They know that if they lose Bihar, there will be a domino effect across the country — and that will mark the beginning of their end. That is why they are determined to win Bihar at any cost.

Their planning reflects a criminal mindset. The strategy is simple: delete 20,000–25,000 names from the rolls in every assembly constituency. If those people cannot vote, victory becomes easier. We have already seen large-scale manipulations like this in Uttar Pradesh in almost every election. Bihar is now facing the same danger.

Despite that, the BJP’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections in UP was very poor.

Exactly. Which only shows that if the elections had truly been fair, BJP would have secured even fewer seats. In many places, Muslims were not even allowed to reach the polling booths — the police stopped them on the way. Anyone suspected of not voting for the BJP was simply prevented from casting a vote. In Bihar, they used an even simpler method: deleting names from the rolls. In short, they were stealing votes — and this time, they got caught.

If the situation is so dire, what is the way out?

The way forward is what Rahul Gandhi has already demonstrated — people must come out on the streets, protest and push back against this subversion of democracy. Ultimately, this government must be thrown out of power.

Do you see similar situations arising elsewhere?

Without a doubt—it’s already happening. The Election Commission has announced it will conduct the SIR in Bengal, which will spark agitation there. The Assam chief minister is demanding it in Assam, which will lead to protests. What Rahul Gandhi started in Bihar has shown a path that others will take.

As the old saying goes: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” And we must be prepared to pay that price.