“Modi govt killing RTI Act bit by bit”: Congress president Kharge

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday accused the Narendra Modi government of "killing" the Right to Information (RTI) Act bit by bit as part of another step towards a "conspiracy to end democracy".

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, the Congress President mentioned the alleged disappearance of a large number of applications from the RTI website and said that the Modi government is not concerned about ‘transparency’.

“Modi government is killing the RTI Act bit by bit. This is not just an attack on the constitutional right, but another step in the conspiracy to end democracy. The disappearance of thousands of applications from the RTI website is only a superficial incident, the internal destruction is deeper,” he said in a post in Hindi on X.

Kharge further said that the proposed amendment of the RTI Act under the guise of the Data Protection Act is a ‘cowardly attack’ on the Right to Information by an authoritarian government.
“Not concerned with transparency. Modi government is so shameless!” he added.

Notably, several opposition parties and civil society groups have claimed that the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill passed recently in Parliament, dilutes provisions of the RTI Act.

The Bill passed by Parliament applies to the processing of digital personal data within India where such data is collected online, or collected offline and is digitised.

It also applies to such processing outside India, if it is for offering goods or services in India.
The Bill also amended the Right to Information Act, of 2005 to remove public interest exemptions on disclosing personal information.
The RTI Act earlier had a provision to allow public authorities to disclose personal information, such as officials’ salaries, when it is in the public interest.
The Bill, however, removed these caveats and completely disallowed disclosing personal information.