Kolkata: Nobel laureate and Indian economist Amartya Sen said on Saturday that all non-communal forces should come together and join hands before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He said that the Left should not hesitate in joining them as “democracy is in danger”. 

Sen said, “We must express our opposition to autocracy, we must fight against their autocratic trends, we must criticise the issues where we need to oppose the non-communal right-wing forces, but we must not take back our hands when it comes to fighting communalism which is the biggest threat".

Sen took a jab at the BJP government and said that a party with 31% votes and ‘ill motives’ came to power during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Sen, while speaking at the Sisir Manch stadium in Kolkata, said that democracy is at stake and only the people of India can salvage it. "I think democracy is in danger but we can do rectification. If we say democracy is under threat, we can be beaten up by some people. But still we, the people, can do the rectification. It is not like a sinking boat which we all should abandon,” he said.

This is not the first time Sen has criticised the Modi government. In June. He said that India has taken a jump in the wrong direction since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.