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 a "conspiracy to end democracy".

On the reported disappearance of a large number of applications from the RTI website, Kharge said it was a "superficial incident" whereas the internal destruction was much deeper.

"The Modi government is killing the RTI Act bit by bit. This is not just an attack on the constitutional rights (of people) but another step in the conspiracy to end democracy," he said in a post in Hindi on 'X', formerly Twitter.

He also alleged that the proposed amendment of the RTI Act under the guise of the data protection law is "a cowardly attack on the right to information by an authoritarian government".

Several opposition parties and civil society groups have claimed that the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, passed in the recently concluded session of Parliament, dilutes provisions of the RTI Act. The government has denied the charge.

Kharge alleged, "The Modi government is so shameless that it is not concerned with transparency."

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