‘Please sir, please, step aside. At least for now’: Arundhati Roy urges PM Modi to resign

As the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic ravages the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing severe criticism not only from political opponents but from the intellectual class also.

Noted writer Arundhati Roy, in a no holds barred criticism of the PM, has urged him to resign from his post in an opinion piece she has written for Scroll.in.

Saying that India needs a government desperately, Roy added, “And we don’t have one. We are running out of air. We are dying. We don’t have systems in place to know what to do with help even when it’s on hand.”

“We cannot wait till 2024. Never would people like myself have imagined the day would come when we would find ourselves appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for anything. Personally, I would rather have gone to prison than do that. But today, as we die in our homes, on the streets, in hospital car parks, in big cities, in small towns, in villages and forests and fields – I, an ordinary private citizen, am swallowing my pride to join millions of my fellow citizens in saying please sir, please, step aside. At least for now. I beseech you, step down,” wrote the author of The God of Small Things, her debut novel that won the Booker Prize in 1997.

Supporting the demand for Modi’s resignation, Roy wrote, “Hundreds of thousands of us will die, unnecessarily, if you don’t go. So, go now.”

“There are many in your party who can take your place for now. People who know they must get on even with political opponents in this moment of crisis. Whoever that person is – from your party, with the approval of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – can head the government and a crisis management committee,” she suggested.

She further wrote: “The state chief ministers can elect a few representatives so that all parties feel represented. The Congress by virtue of being a national party can be on the committee too. And then scientists, public health experts, doctors, experienced bureaucrats... This is what is known as democracy.”