NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JUNE 25
On the 49th anniversary of Emergency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that its dark days are a reminder of how the Congress subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution which every Indian respects greatly.
The #DarkDaysOfEmergency were very challenging times. In those days, people across all walks of life came together and resisted this attack on democracy. I also had numerous experiences working with various people during that time. This thread gives a glimpse of that… https://t.co/VlVlBz9UyT
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 25, 2024
Hitting out at the main opposition party, he said in posts on X that those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess their love for our Constitution.
- BJP leader calls for Rahul Gandhi’s public apology over 1975 Emergency: ‘His grandmother did the wrong thing…’
- “Must remember darkness of Emergency”: Venkaiah Naidu on 17 months in jail
Modi said, “These are the same people who have imposed Article 356 on innumerable occasions, got a Bill to destroy press freedom, destroyed federalism and violated every aspect of the Constitution.”
“The mindset which led to the imposition of the Emergency is very much alive among the same Party which imposed it. They hide their disdain for the Constitution through their tokenism but the people of India have seen through their antics and that is why they have rejected them time and again,” he said.
Just to cling on to power, the then Congress Government disregarded every democratic principle and turned the nation into a jail,” Modi said, adding that any person who disagreed with the party was tortured and harassed.
“Socially regressive policies were unleashed to target the weakest sections,” he said. On June 25, 1975, the then Prime Minister Indra Gandhi, a Congress stalwart, imposed Emergency in the country, suspending civil liberties, jailing opposition leaders and dissidents and effecting press censorship.
The Prime Minister said the anniversary on Tuesday is a day to pay homage to all those great men and women who resisted the Emergency. The first day of the 18th Lok Sabha on Monday witnessed a war of words between Prime Minister Modi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge over the imposition of Emergency.
BJP leader calls for Rahul Gandhi’s public apology over 1975 Emergency: ‘His grandmother did the wrong thing…’
Senior BJP leader Vikram Verma on Tuesday said Rahul Gandhi should publicly express regret for the Emergency imposed by his grandmother and then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
Verma, a former Union minister, also dubbed the Congress leader as “immature”, claiming that he has no knowledge of the Articles of the Constitution.
“Then prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency on the country for her vested interests without the consent of her cabinet, and murdered democracy. All civil rights were suspended,” he told reporters in Indore.
It was “surprising and ridiculous” that her grandson Rahul Gandhi was seen holding a copy of the Constitution in Parliament, Verma added.
“First of all, Rahul should express regret that his grandmother did the wrong thing by imposing Emergency on the country,” the BJP leader said.
On Rahul’s demand for a caste census, he said such a survey was not necessary. “Internal surveys can be conducted to find out the economic status of different castes,” Verma added. The BJP launched a sharp attack on Congress on Tuesday on the 49th anniversary of the 1975 Emergency.
“Must remember darkness of Emergency”: Venkaiah Naidu on 17 months in jail
This day in 1975 marks a Black Day in Indian Democracy, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency. The memories of that dark chapter in the nation’s journey remain fresh especially for me & my contemporaries. Many opposition stalwarts of the time were imprisoned for… pic.twitter.com/xlG0sO9M7t
— M Venkaiah Naidu (@MVenkaiahNaidu) June 25, 2024
The “darkness” of the Emergency imposed by the Indra Gandhi-led Congress government in June 1975 “must be known to youngsters today as they are the future of the country”, former Vice President Venkaiah Naidu told NDTV Tuesday, on the 50th anniversary of Emergency.
“I am very particular students today know what happened in the country in 1975… during the Emergency. They must know why it was imposed, how was it enforced, and how was it lifted. All of this must be known to youngsters because they are the future of the country,” Mr Naidu said.
Mr Naidu, a veteran member of the ruling BJP who was also a Union Minister, a Rajya Sabha MP, and the National President of his party, spent 17-and-a-half months in jail during the Emergency.
