MUMBAI: One of India’s best known politicians, former finance and foreignminister Yashwant Sinha, quit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) onSaturday, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was underminingdemocratic institutions.

Sinha, who served as a minister in the first BJP-led governments headed byAtal Bihari Vajpayee in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has frequentlyspoken out over how the Hindu nationalist party has evolved since then.

“Democracy in India is in grave danger,” Sinha said, announcing hisdecision to quit at a meeting of a new political action group attended byseveral opposition politicians in Patna, the capital of Bihar.

“I’m not going to be a member of any other political party,” he said,adding, “My friends and I will lead a movement to save democracy in India.”

Sinha delivered his broadside as Modi prepares to lead the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) into a general election due by next year, with high hopes ofsecuring a second term.

Aged 80 and no longer active in electoral politics, Sinha has criticisedthe Modi government on a range of issues, most recently through an openletter published earlier this week.

In that letter, Sinha urged the prime minister to speak and act moreforcefully on vital issues, including recent horrific rapes that havereflected badly on the BJP.

In one case party members had appeared to support the Hindu men accused ofraping an eight-year-old Muslim girl, and in another case in Uttar Pradesha Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker is alleged to have raped a teenager.

Sinha also said that India’s religious minorities had become alienated, andthe weakest sections of society, the scheduled castes and tribes had been“exposed to atrocities as never before” and the guarantees given to them inthe constitution were threatened.

On Friday, seven opposition parties moved to have Misra impeached forbending to political pressure and other shortfalls in his conduct.