Shillong/Guwahati: The Congress in the Northeast observed Save Democracy Day on Friday in protest against Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala's "blatant and authoritarian" action to invite the BJP to form the government. It sought the President's intervention to protect the Constitution and stop Vala's "gross misuse of powers".

In Meghalaya, the PCC staged a dharna outside Congress Bhawan in Shillong. The protesters, including party MLAs, shouted slogans like "Murder of Democracy", "Violation of Democracy" and "We condemn BJP".

PCC president Celestine Lyngdoh said Vala had "blatantly twisted the laws" by inviting the BJP to form the government and not giving the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), which had the numbers, a chance.

Congress legislator M. Ampareen Lyngdoh said the country runs under the Constitution, which does not permit suppression of one party in all the states. "This has happened not only in Karnataka but in Manipur and Goa. We cannot allow this," she said.

In Assam, the PCC, Mahila Congress and the National Students Union of India staged a protest at Dighalipukhuri in Guwahati in the morning. Senior leaders Ripun Bora, Rakibul Hussain, Akon Bora, Wajed Ali Choudhury, Bismita Gogoi, Sarat Borkataki, Rekibuddin Ahmed, former MP Bolin Kuli and others participated in the protest and later submitted a memorandum to governor Jagdish Mukhi. They also submitted a one-page memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind through the governor, seeking his intervention to save the Constitution and stop gross misuse of governor's powers.

Bora said, "If the criterion of single largest majority party is followed, the Congress would have formed the government in Goa, Manipur and Meghalaya. It is a moral victory for the Congress that Yeddyurappa has been asked by the Supreme Court to prove his majority on Saturday."

In Arunachal Pradesh, the PCC submitted a memorandum to the President through governor B.D. Mishra, urging him to save democracy and sanctity of the Constitution. Accusing Vala of "subverting" democracy, the PCC recalled how in 2016, the then Arunachal governor J.P. Rajkhowa had created political instability in the state by masterminding the toppling of Nabam Tuki-led elected Congress government. It said the BJP was employing the same tactics in Karnataka by using the governor to "act as a BJP and RSS activist".

In Mizoram, five-time Congress chief minister Lal Thanhawla, speaking at a meeting in Congress Bhawan, criticised Vala's action as unconstitutional and undemocratic. "The BJP has violated the Constitution and spit on democracy by playing a political drama in Karnataka. It did not hesitate to go to any extreme to capture power. It has tarnished the essence of democracy. No doubt, a governor is constitutionally right in inviting the single largest party to form the government. But the BJP-backed governors failed to do so in Manipur, Goa, Bihar and other states."

The Congress is in power only in Mizoram, losing one state after another after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014.

Additional reporting by Henry Khojol in Aizawl