The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Recalling Emergency, BJP targets Cong: Has no right to profess love for Constitution
WITH THE Opposition using the Constitution to target the government, the BJP on Tuesday recalled the imposition of Emergency to hit back at the Congress.
In posts on X to mark the 49th anniversary of Emergency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess their love for our Constitution”.
“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.
“The Congress crushed the spirit of our Constitution several times for the sake of maintaining a certain family in power. Indira Gandhi unleashed ruthless atrocities on the people of India during Emergency,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted on X.
Targeting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Shah said the “yuvraj” had forgotten that his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, had imposed the Emergency and his father, Rajiv Gandhi, said in Parliament that “there is nothing wrong with an Emergency”.
Addressing party workers, BJP president and Union Health Minister JP Naddap raised the role of the RS Sand Jan aS angh in the anti-emergency movement. “When it came to defending the country, our swayamsevaks, our people of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, did their utmost,” he said. “As many as 1,40,000 people were arrested under MISA and Defence of India
Rules. Among them, 75,00080,000 people were from our ideology — RSS and Jana Sangh. There are lakhs of such families that sacrificed everything.”
His acknowledgement of the RSS'S role comes close on the heels of his earlier comments in an interview to The Indian Express. Asked how RSS-BJP relations had changed over time, Nadda had said: “Shuru mein hum aksham honge, thoda kum honge, RSS ki zaroorat padti thi… Aaj hum badh gaye hain, saksham hai… toh BJP apne aap ko chalati hai (In the beginning, we would have been less capable, smaller and needed the RSS. Today, we have grown and we are capable. The BJP runs itself). That’s the difference.”
After the Lok Sabha election results, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat had flagged the loss of maryada (decorum) in the campaign, saying that a true sevak does not have ahankar (arrogance) and works without causing hurt to others.
Recalling the Emergency, Nadda said: “Because of sacrifices made at that time, our democracy stands strong today... As many as 9,000 people were arrested in one night. No prominent Opposition leader was spared, be it Morarji Desai, Mohan Dharia, Vajpayee ji, Advani ji. They stayed in jail for 19 months, only for raising their voices for democracy.”
“People were scared to even talk inside their homes. Colleges looked like cantonments. My entire class was arrested twice for raising the slogan of 'Inquilab Zindabad'. Entire cricket and football teams were picked up from college and dropped 20 kilometres away from the city for raising such slogans. But nobody broke ranks. There were satyagrahas each day. The media faced censorship... We used to quietly circulate pamphlets at night so as to know what was happening... Rahul (Gandhi) has read very little history... In 1977, democracy was restored and the autocratic government lost,” Nadda said.