Emergency mindset still alive in Congress: PM Narendra Modi

New Delhi, June 25

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday flagged the “dark days of the 1975 Emergency” to attack the Congress as anti-Constitution and said the mindset that led to the suspension of all fundamental rights was still alive in the party.

Speaking on the 50th year of the imposition of Emergency by late PM Indira Gandhi, the PM said the day was all about paying homage to the men and women who resisted the Emergency.

“The #DarkDaysOfEmergency remind us of how the Congress subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution which every Indian respects greatly,” Modi said, with the ruling BJP observing the day as a “black day” nationally and top ministers slamming the Congress for paying just “lip service to the Constitution and democracy”.

Leading the party’s event “Dark Days of Emergency”, BJP chief JP Nadda said the Congress insistence on deputy speaker’s post for the opposition as a condition to support the NDA’s Speaker nominee was unprecedented.

“Has Speaker’s election ever be held on conditions? In the states where they rule — Telangana, Karnataka and West Bengal — the opposition parties have their own Speakers and Deputy Speakers and in the Lok Sabha, they are putting conditions. This is their hypocrisy and anti-Constitution approach,” said Nadda, adding the Congress removed elected governments 90 times and late Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency after the Allahabad High Court declared her election invalid on June 12, 1975, banning her for six years from contesting.

Earlier, the PM also said, “Just to cling on to power, the then Congress government disregarded every democratic principle and turned 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.”