NEW DELHI: Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday slammed Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah “illegal” and accused the Congress of disrespecting the Constitution.In a statement, the Union minister described the statement an insult to constitutional institutions and electoral mandate of the people.“The statement made by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at the direction of leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi is yet another example of their frustration, defeatist mindset and the Congress party’s longstanding practice of attacking constitutional institutions,” Chouhan said in a statement.“Kharge calling the Prime Minister and the home minister ‘illegal’ is an insult to constitutional institutions and the mandate of the people,” he said.This comes after Kharge demanded dissolving the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, saying that all the elections were illegal and even Prime Minister Modi, home minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of all the states were illegal.“Today, the entire country is being run on illegal elections. Modi is an illegal Prime Minister, Shah is an illegal minister, and all the chief ministers who have been elected anywhere are illegal. All of them should be dissolved, elections should be held, and elections should be conducted through ballot papers,” he said.He alleged that the ongoing SIR of the electoral roll has many irregularities and is undermining democracy, pointing out that the government is making many mistakes in the process.
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Kharge pointed out that under the new law, if the CEC or our Election Commissioners commit any mistake, “there can be no inquiry against them anywhere — till death”, alleging that this is how they were destroying democracy.Referring to a report by The Indian Express on the SIR, Kharge said that two members of the Election Commission had written to the Chief Election Commissioner 10 and 14 times, respectively, but their letters had no impact.“They cannot speak openly outside, but they expressed their views clearly, he said, adding that if such things continue, they can conduct elections arbitrarily.“We have to see whether you want to save democracy in this country or destroy it. That is why we called an all-party meeting and asked everyone to launch an agitation. The first agitation started in Delhi,” he said.
