NEW DELHI: Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday accused the opposition of conspiring to incite violence in India during the anti-SIR protests, alleging that attempts were being made to trigger unrest similar to that witnessed in Bangladesh and France.In a social media post, Rijiju alleged that “anti-India gangs” and some politicians had colluded to incite the youth and fuel violence on the streets.“The violent incident that occurred in Bangladesh and the riots, arson, and looting that took place in France - a similar conspiracy was hatched for India as well. Anti-India gangs and some politicians had colluded to incite the youth and spread violence on our streets,” the Union minister said.“But those who devised this dangerous conspiracy forgot that India is neither Bangladesh nor France. Regime change in India is absolutely possible - but only through elections, not through Soros,” he added.Rijiju also shared a video featuring AISA president Neha Bora and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan advocating regime change.
His remarks come amid a political row over references to regime change by opposition leaders and student activists during protests in Delhi against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Earlier, Bhushan rejected the government's alleged characterisation of the agitation as an opposition-led attempt to bring about regime change.“This government keeps on saying this is the opposition's operation of regime change. We are only appealing to save the electoral democracy in this country. If such barbarism continues, there will definitely be a regime change. We all want a regime change. Is there anything wrong with that? Regime change is a democratic right of every citizen, and creating disaffection against the government is not an offence,” Bhushan said.
Rohitashwa Ranjan is a digital journalist with The Times of India, where he decodes Indian politics as a carefully staged production with scripts, subtext and everything behind. His stories track elections, party dynamics and the things that often are buried beneath the headlines. When not parsing vote shares or alliances, he is usually reading between the lines, where the real story tends to reside.