Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday rejected the BJP’s charge that the Opposition was seeking “regime change” similar to Bangladesh and France, while asserting that they wanted to address a “constitutional issue.”
“.. 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… “… 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. “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…” the Congress MP stated.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP further said that the Opposition believes in “peaceful protest”. Tharoor told news agency ANI. He said there was “no point distorting a phrase like ‘regime change.’” Tharoor’s remarks come after Union parliamentary affairs minister and BJP leader Kiren Rijiju had alleged that some “anti-India groups and politicians had colluded to incite youth and spread violence in India. “Regime change in India is absolutely possible—but only through elections, not through Soros,” Rijiju said in a post on X. He further said that he was not challenging constitutional institutions, but the way in which they were behaving. I’m challenging the way they are behaving, the way they are conducting themselves,” Tharoor told ANI. He said that this was something “all of us in India should be concerned about.
“I think that India is not Bangladesh and India is not France. I don’t see these analogies as particularly relevant…
Tharoor said, adding that the Opposition had been calling for “free and fair elections”. He said the Opposition was calling for it “to be undone”, while adding, “It’s not an issue of trying to topple a regime or anything like that…”
