Tharoor Backs Peaceful Protest, Urges Accountability in SIR Row

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has pushed back against the BJP's assertion that anti-SIR protests are secretly meant to produce a change of power. Speaking on Friday, he said the protests were a matter of democratic expression and that the real question was accountability within the electoral process.

At an NDTV World Summit panel, Tharoor responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's repeated references to the Emergency. He asked how the Emergency had ended and answered that it was through a united opposition. He said the RSS and the BJP had joined socialists and leftists to defeat the government that had declared the Emergency.

He described this as part of India's recent political history, only about fifty years old. His remarks referred to the Janata Party's victory over the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi.

Tharoor also dismissed the idea that Indian protests could become violent like those in France. He said peaceful dissent is a democratic right guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution and the law, and that violence is not part of that right.

He stated that Indian politics would not tolerate the kind of unrest seen in France. He said he himself would not tolerate it and did not believe his party would welcome violence.

He reiterated that the Congress stands for peaceful, organised and disciplined protest. Tharoor said that if the government and the Election Commission were willing to answer for serious irregularities in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls over the last few years, he was confident the system could be cleaned up.

He also said that electoral rules would be restored, that no citizen would be stopped from voting or choosing their political representatives, and that a free and fair election would bring about a change of government. Voters, he argued, had already seen the shortcomings of the present administration, and the opposition wanted that change to come through credible elections.