BJP govt. at the Centre undermining constitutional values, rights of people: Kanimozhi

DMK deputy general secretary and Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi on Friday (October 16, 2026) charged that the BJP government at the Centre had been undermining the values enshrined in the Constitution and the rights guaranteed to the people.

Participating in a protest at Rajarathinam Stadium in Chennai, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the revocation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Ms. Kanimozhi said ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre, it had continued to brand everyone who questioned it as “anti-national.”

“The government had no faith in Parliament. It kept reducing the number of days Parliament met,” she said, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of rarely being present in Parliament when the House was in session, delivering his prepared speeches and leaving the House.

“We have reached a situation in this country where the Union government appears to have no faith in democracy, no faith in the people’s elected representatives, and no faith in the Constitution. We have never seen a Union government of this kind before,” she said.

Through the SIR exercise, nearly 13 crore citizens had been deprived of their right to vote. In Tamil Nadu, nearly 74 lakh people had lost their right to vote because of the SIR exercise. The youth of India had given fresh hope and were fighting for those who had been deprived of their voting rights, she said.

She also alleged the Tamil Nadu government treated protests in the same manner as the BJP government at the Centre acted against those who protested. When young people took to the streets to protest, the authorities seemed to believe that they could take them somewhere, confine them, and suppress their protests.