Nadda flays Cong for Emergency excesses

Union Health Minister J P Nadda said that Congress has no moral right to pontificate on the beauty of democracy as it is the party which gagged democracy by slapping the draconian internal emergency on the country 43 years ago. He was addressing newspersons at State BJP office on Tuesday.

The Minister was in Dehradun as part of the BJP’s nationwide observance of ‘ Black Day’ to mark the 43rd anniversary of the declaration of internal emergency in the country.

Launching a blistering attack on the Congress, Nadda said that the true face of the party is imprinted clearly on the pages of the history when Indira Gandhi announced internal emergency in 1975 to throttle the democratic system in the country to retain power in the wake of the historic Allahabad High Court ruling which scrapped Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha. “Significantly, the emergency was declared ahead of the cabinet meeting and the real reason for the declaration was to retain power by suspending the Constitution. They cited threat to internal  security in defence of the emergency to befool the people,” the Union Minister said.  

Giving statistics of the bygone era, Nadda said that a total 110806 people had been put in jails by way of the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) while 75818 people had been arrested under Defence of India Act. “The Press was gagged through imposition of press censorship on June 26, 1975 and  the newspapers came out with blank editorials by way of venting  protest. Even the judiciary was not spared as Chief Justice was appointed by superseding three seniormost judges. In all, 26 organisations, including political parties, were banned,” he said.

Recounting the people’s outburst against the attempt to choke the democratic voice, he said that lakhs of people all over the country had valiantly  fought the murder of democracy for over 22 months while braving the wrath of the Government.

Continuing with his diatribe against the Congress, Nadda said that its leaders are only interested in maintaining the dynastic rule while taking the democratic institutions for a ride. “The Congress-led Centre using article 356 more than 100 times to dislodge the elected State Governments is a testimony to the authoritarian mindset of the Congress,” he said.

He, further, said that the people of Uttarakhand too had participated actively in the struggle for restoration of democracy as more than 200 people had been put behind bars by then administration. Remembering the role of Prem Bhadkoti and Vallabh Bhai Pandey in the struggle, the minister hailed  the decision of the Uttarakhand Government to provide pension to those who were jailed during the emergency.

Emergency still remains in people’s mind

The Union Mminister became a little unnerved when the journalists asked the purpose of observing the ‘Black day’ on 43rd anniversary of the emergency on such a massive scale and whether it was launched as part of its strategy for the general elections 2019. He explained that the emergency is still relevant and the people should be informed about this dark phase of the history. Quizzed over the Government giving newspaper advertisements on Emergency, he said that it has been done to create awareness about the monumental issue which bears on the democratic traditions of the country.