Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday (June 25) hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his remarks on the Emergency, accusing him of enforcing an “undeclared emergency” in the last 10 years of his power at the Centre, while also citing examples of the same. Kharge said that the Prime Minister is raking up the past only to hide his failures.
"Narendra Modi ji, the country is looking forward to the future but you keep scratching the past to hide your failures. In the last 10 years, you made 140 crore Indians realise what 'undeclared emergency' is, which caused a deep trauma to democracy and the Constitution," Kharge said in a post in Hindi on X.
"Breaking parties, toppling elected governments through the backdoor, misuse of agencies like ED, CBI, IT against 95 percent of opposition leaders, putting chief ministers in jail, and using the official machinery before elections and disturbing the level playing field, is this not undeclared emergency," he said.
What did PM Modi say?
His remarks came after the Prime Minister said on Tuesday that those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess love for 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.
Kharge counters PM on ‘consensus’ remark
Countering PM Modi, Kharge said, "Modi ji talks of consensus and cooperation but his actions are just the opposite."
The Congress chief asked when 146 opposition MPs were suspended from Parliament and three new laws were brought to change the code of criminal procedure, Indian Penal Code and Indian Evidence Act, where was that consensus then.
"Where was the consensus when statues of stalwarts like Chhatrapati Shivaji, Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar were relocated within the Parliament complex without even asking the opposition. Where was this consensus when three new farm laws were forced on 15 crore farmer families and they had to sit on the roads for months together and atrocities were committed on them" he said.
Kharge said there are several other examples when the government did not use consensus, including note ban, lockdown and electoral bonds law.
On June 25, 1975, the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency in the country, suspending civil liberties, jailing opposition leaders and dissidents and effecting press censorship.
(With PTI inputs)
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