Congress Party President Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday criticised the PM Modi government, claiming that its actions are undermining the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Kharge took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share an image of the 'RTI' acronym being buried beneath a hammer imprinted with a saffron Lotus symbol. His tweet accompanied the image with a caption that read, "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."
Kharge further expressed his concerns regarding the proposed amendment of the RTI Act under the guise of the Data Protection Act. "A cowardly attack on the Right to Information by an authoritarian government is the proposed amendment to the RTI Act disguised as the Data Protection Act. Modi government is so shameless when it comes to transparency!" he tweeted in Hindi.
The statement by Kharge follows recent observations by RTI activists who noticed that their previous application records had disappeared in significant numbers from the RTIOnline portal earlier in the week. This portal facilitates citizens' access to public information from the Union government. The Hindu verified instances where applications and responses from years prior had vanished from the portal.
The RTIOnline portal enables citizens to submit RTI applications online by paying a nominal fee of ₹10 through digital payment options, eliminating the need for the traditional method of mailing applications with a postal cheque.
According to the Hindu, several years' worth of applications and responses were missing from the portal, citing an RTI activist from Madhya Pradesh, Chandra Shekhar Gaur, who claimed that there was a mismatch of hundreds in his account.
As per the report, the magnitude of these deletions is noteworthy, with data revealing that over 58.3 lakh applications were processed through the RTIOnline portal since its launch in 2013. The portal's performance has been deteriorating over recent months, with lags and performance issues. Users faced delays in their applications being filed with authorities after making payments, the report said.
Last year, the Union Government suspended the option to create new accounts on the RTIOnline portal due to the website's "heavy load". Existing account holders must file at least one application within six months to retain their accounts.