Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday accused the opposition of conspiring to incite violence in India during the anti-SIR protests, claiming that attempts were underway to engineer unrest similar to what was seen in Bangladesh and France.
In a social media post, Rijiju alleged that “anti-India gangs” and certain politicians had joined hands to provoke the youth and fuel street violence.
“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 controversy 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.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, the BJP said, “Congress, unable to win public trust, seeks power through chaos and anarchy. But New India will not let it undermine democracy for political gains.”
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.