45 Years of Emergency: PM Modi said the country will “never forget their sacrifice” to restore democracy in India.

45 Years of Emergency in India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid rich tributes to people who opposed the Emergency and fought to restore democracy in the country. In a tweet, PM Modi said the country will “never forget their sacrifice”.

“The Emergency was imposed in the country exactly 45 years ago. The people who struggled to defend democracy at that time, I salute them. The country will never forget their sacrifice,” he tweeted in Hindi and also shared an audio clip of his last year’s Mann Ki Baat where he can be heard speaking about the Emergency era.

The Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975. Then the Congress government was headed by Indira Gandhi.

“When Emergency was imposed, its opposition was not restricted to the political class alone but filled every one with resentment. People were in anguish to get back the lost democracy. Those who get two square meals easily, do not realise the pain of hunger. In normal life one realises the importance of democratic rights when someone snatches these rights. During the emergency every citizen felt that something was taken away from them,” he said.

“…Indians can be proud of the fact that apart from laws and regulations, democracy is inherent in our values,” the PM can be heard as saying in the two-minute audio clip.

आज से ठीक 45 वर्ष पहले देश पर आपातकाल थोपा गया था। उस समय भारत के लोकतंत्र की रक्षा के लिए जिन लोगों ने संघर्ष किया, यातनाएं झेलीं, उन सबको मेरा शत-शत नमन! उनका त्याग और बलिदान देश कभी नहीं भूल पाएगा। pic.twitter.com/jlQVJQVrsX

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 25, 2020

Several BJP leaders too lashed out at the Congress as they sought to remind the party about the Emergency of Indira Gandhi.

Home minister Amit Shah targeted the Gandhi family as he spoke about “one dynasty” and claimed that leaders in the Congress are getting frustrated.

“On this day, 45 years ago one family’s greed for power led to the imposition of the Emergency. Overnight the nation was turned into a prison. The press, courts, free speech…all were trampled over. Atrocities were committed on the poor and downtrodden,” he said in a series of tweets.

BJP national president JP Nadda lashed out at the Congress saying it is power hungry and “created a huge challenge for democracy by coming up with emergency.”