Synopsis
BJP observed June 25 as a “Black Day” and organised programmes at several places to slam the Congress. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav (SP) waived pocket versions of the Constitution when Modi took oath as a Lok Sabha member on Monday. Other Opposition members also flashed copies of the Constitution in Parliament House on various occasions.
With the Opposition alleging that there is a threat to the Constitution under the NDA government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led his party in slamming the Congress on the anniversary of the national Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi on this day in 1975.
BJP organised programmes across the country on the issue. Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda slammed the Congress on the atrocities committed on political opponents and curbing dissent during the 19 months of the national Emergency.
“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,” Modi said in a series of messages on ‘X’ on Tuesday.
Though BJP observes the anniversary of the imposition of Emergency on June 25, 1975 as a dark day for democracy, this year it was more vocal due to the attacks on it by the Congress and other Opposition parties during the Lok Sabha election campaign that if the BJP gets an overwhelming majority (400 paar), then it will rewrite the Constitution and tamper with the rights of Dalits and OBCs.
BJP observed June 25 as a “Black Day” and organised programmes at several places to slam the Congress.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav (SP) waived pocket versions of the Constitution when Modi took oath as a Lok Sabha member on Monday. Other Opposition members also flashed copies of the Constitution in Parliament House on various occasions.
In his tweets, Modi said the dark days of Emergency are a reminder of the way Congress “subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution…”
“Just to cling on to power, the then Congress government disregarded every democratic principle and made the nation into a jail. Any person who disagreed with the Congress was tortured and harassed. Socially regressive policies were unleashed to target the weakest sections,” Modi said, adding that this mindset is “very much alive” in the Congress and the people have “seen through their antics” and rejected them.
Modi had slammed the Congress on Monday as well on the Emergency in his remarks to the media on the commencement of the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha.
Amit Shah charged the Congress with crushing the “spirit of our Constitution several times for the sake of maintaining a certain family in power”, alluding to the Nehru-Gandhi family.
On his X handle, Shah said the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has “unleashed ruthless atrocities” on the people during the Emergency.
“The Yuvraj (Rahul Gandhi) of the Congress has forgotten that his grandmother imposed the Emergency and his father Rajiv Gandhi said on July 23,1985 in the Lok Sabha with much pride on this horrific episode, ‘there is nothing wrong with an Emergency’,” Shah said.
Shah quoted Rajiv Gandhi: “If any prime minister of this country who feels that an Emergency is necessary, under these circumstances and does not apply the Emergency, (then) he is not fit to be the prime minister of this country.”
Shah maintained that this pride in a “dictatorial act” depicts that there is nothing dearer to the Congress than “the family and power”.
BJP chief JP Nadda addressed a programme to observe the anniversary as a Dark Day of the Emergency where he charged that the erstwhile Congress regime had jailed Opposition members for 19 months for standing up for democracy.
Nadda raked up the Lok Sabha Speaker issue, alleging that the Opposition is putting conditions for supporting the NDA candidate while appointing both Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the state assemblies of Telangana, Karnataka and West Bengal (TMC).
He emphasised that that Congress had used Article 356 to dismiss state governments 90 times since Independence. He recalled the 2013 incident where Rahul Gandhi had torn an Ordinance supported by his party.
