New Delhi: In a scathing attack on Congress and Indira Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Thursday described the Emergency, which was imposed 40 years ago, as the worst phase which the nation witnessed and accused the grand old party of harbouring a dictatorial mindset which had led to such a situation.
While addressing party leaders here at a programme organised on 40th Anniversary of Emergency, Amit Shah said, “Aapatkaal taanashaahi ki maansiktaa se ata hai (Dictatorial mindset leads to Emergency)”.
Shah further hit out at Congress and said, “Aapaatkaal ka mool kaaran hai dusron ke vichaaron ko na sun na (The root cause of Emergency is not paying heed to others' views).”
"Emergency is not brought in by an ordnance or compulsion of taking to the ordinance route. Emergency is because of an authoritarian mindest and unwillingness to listen to anyone," Shah said at the event.
“I don’t hesitate in saying that our's is the strongest democracy in World,” he said, and added, “I pay respects to all those who struggled to keep democracy alive during Emergency.”
Further recalling the post-Emergency period, Shah said, “With the declaration of Emergency, political leaders from all across nation were put in jail on June 26, 1975.”
Meanwhile, sources told ANI that senior BJP leader LK Advani was not extended invitation for the event.
The event was organised to honour those who went to jail during the Emergency in 1975.
Notably, BJP veteran LK Advani is one of the prominent opposition leaders jailed by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government during the Emergency.
The move comes days after in an interview given to an English daily, earlier this month, Advani had said that he did not see any sign in India's current polity that assured him of any outstanding aspect of leadership, adding that he did not have the confidence that a situation like the Emergency would not be repeated in the country.
Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency in the country on June 25, 1975 after the Allahabad High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court found her election to the Lok Sabha 'null and void'. Formally proclaimed by then-president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the decision to enforce the Emergency was taken without the approval of the then-union cabinet.
With protests and strikes sweeping the country after the Supreme Court's judgement, the government officially stated that the country was 'paralysed' after a hard-fought war with Pakistan and justified the imposition of the Emergency by citing threats to national security.
During this 22-month period, Gandhi invoked Article 352 of the Constitution to grant herself 'extraordinary powers' and launched a massive crackdown on civil liberties and political rivals, arresting opposition leaders like Vijayaraje Scindia, Jaiprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.
Other atrocities committed by the government during this period include the widespread censuring of all media, the detention of people by the police without notification, abuse and torture of detainees, and the forced sterilisation drives undertaken by Gandhi's younger son Sanjay.
The Emergency officially ended on March 23, 1977, with Gandhi having released all political prisoners earlier that year. Fresh elections were called, with the Congress losing by a large margin, resulting in the Janata Party's Morarji Desai becoming the first non-Congress prime minister of India.
(With Agency inputs)
