Shashi Tharoor rejects ‘regime change’ charge as anti-EC protests continue
Here's the latest protest news from across India:
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday rejected the BJP's charge that the Opposition was seeking to bring about “regime change” in India, saying its demand was for free and fair elections and that the issue was constitutional, not an attempt to topple the government.
Adding to this, Shashi Tharoor shared there was “no point distorting a phrase like ‘regime change.’” (ANI) Responding to Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju's remarks, Tharoor shared comparisons between India, Bangladesh and France were not relevant. He also distanced the Opposition from the violence witnessed in France, stressing that it believed in peaceful protests.
Meanwhile, “I think that India is not Bangladesh and India is not France. I don't see these analogies as particularly relevant,” Tharoor shared in Thiruvananthapuram.
Notably, “We would never condone any of the violence, setting alight buses and police stations and so on, that has occurred in France. We only believe in peaceful protest,” he added.
As per the latest buzz, The Congress MP shared the Opposition's demand was rooted in concerns over electoral rolls and the process through which voters' names had allegedly been deleted. “What we are calling for is free and fair elections,” he shared, adding that the issue was “a constitutional issue” and not an attempt to topple the government.
In further updates, #WATCH | Thiruvananthapuram, Keralam | n Union Minister Kiren Rijiju's statement, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, "I think that India is not Bangladesh and India is not France. I don't see these analogies as particularly relevant... We would never condone any of the violence, setting alight buses and police stations and so on, that has occurred in France. We only believe in peaceful protest... that's the kind of protest that I have participated in, and that I believe the opposition in general supports... As far as the larger issues are concerned, there's no point distorting a phrase like 'regime change' and so on... What we are calling for is free and fair elections... What is troubling today is that large numbers of people have been cut from the electoral rolls as the result of a completely troublesome, irregular, and partially illegal process. This is why we are calling for all this to be undone... It's a constitutional issue. It's not an issue of trying to topple a regime or anything like that..." He adds, "...Democracy is not a gift of anybody... we, the ordinary citizens of India, are the custodians of it... Every Indian citizen has the right to protect our democracy... All I'm saying is we are asking institutions like the Election Commission to behave themselves, to perform as they are required to by the democratic Constitution of India. That's all it is. I'm not in any way challenging these institutions as institutions. I'm challenging the way they are behaving, the way they are conducting themselves, and that is something that honestly all of us in India should be concerned about..."
On top of that, Tharoor alleged that large numbers of people had been removed from electoral rolls through what he described as a “completely troublesome, irregular, and partially illegal process”. He was referring to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, against which the Opposition has raised concerns.
“This is why we are calling for all this to be undone,” he shared, reiterating that the demand was not aimed at bringing down the government.
Source: Hindustan Times