Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday targeted the Congress over the imposition of Emergency in 1975, saying just to cling on to power, the then Congress government disregarded every democratic principle and made the nation into a jail.
"Today is a day to pay homage to all those great men and women who resisted the Emergency. The #DarkDaysOfEmergency remind us of how the Congress Party subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution of India which every Indian respects greatly," the prime minister wrote on X.
Just to cling on to power, the then Congress Government disregarded every democratic principle and made the nation into a jail, he said, adding any person who disagreed with the Congress was tortured and harassed.
Socially regressive policies were unleashed to target the weakest sections, the PM 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," PM Modi added.
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.
Meanwhile, according to Article 352, the President can proclaim an emergency if there is a grave threat to the security of the country, whether by war or external aggression or armed rebellion. Before June 1975, a state of emergency was declared between October 1962 and January 1968 by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during the India-China war. The second emergency was declared by Gandhi on December 3, 1971 due to the India-Pakistan war which led to the creation of Bangladesh.
