Congress didn't learn from mistakes it made during Emergency: Poonia

JAIPUR: Rajasthan BJP state president Satish Poonia on Friday said the Congress did not learn from the mistakes it made during the period of Emergency in the country and was gradually disappearing from national and state politics.

Terming the Emergency the "second mistake" in India's history after partition, he stressed the youngsters should know about it. The state BJP chief was addressing a press conference on the 46th anniversary of the Emergency.

Poonia said the Congress did not learn from the mistakes it made during the period of Emergency and was gradually disappearing from national and state politics.

"Whenever Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot speaks, he talks about the threat to democracy but he or any other Congress leader does not speak about the Emergency, which was also an attack on democracy," he said.

Poonia said the younger generation should learn and know about the Emergency and the anarchy that followed.

"It (imposition of Emergency) was the second mistake in history after partition," he said. A 21-month Emergency was imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977.

During this period, curbs were imposed on citizens' fundamental rights. Gandhi lifted the Emergency in 1977 and called for Lok Sabha elections in which the Congress was handed a crushing defeat, its first ever since the country's independence in 1947, by the combined opposition of Janata Party.