A day after Rahul Gandhi said that the Emergency imposed by late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a mistake, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday took to Twitter to slam the Congress leader, terming his remarks as “another theatrical exercise.”
“Accepting that Emergency was a mistake is another theatrical exercise by Rahul Gandhi to fool the nation. Such insincere and tactical regrets can not wash away memories of the dark chapter when fundamental rights were infringed, press was gagged, and the institutions were held hostage,” Pradhan tweeted. “The country has not forgotten how the government of the day had the gumption to tell the Hon’ble Supreme Court that the right to life had been suspended,” he added.
The union minister added that Rahul’s comments were part of a trick by Congress which it uses to come to power after being rejected by people of the country.
Pradhan also asked Rahul Gandhi if he forgot his ordinance-trashing episode and how he shamed and disrespected the then Prime Minister of India.
“Has Rahul forgotten that Late Rajiv Gandhi apologised but justified the Emergency and thereafter attempted gagging the press by bringing ‘Defamation Bill’, curbing civil liberties and seeking to spy on citizens through the Post Office Amendment Bill in 1986?” he further remarked.
The MP from Wayanad, while participating in a webinar organised by US university Cornell on Tuesday, had said that the Emergency imposed in the country in 1975 was wrong.
“There is a fundamental difference between what happened in the Emergency, which was wrong, and what is happening now. Congress party, at no point, attempted to capture India’s constitutional framework. Our design doesn’t allow us that. Even if we want to do it, we can’t,” the Congress leader had added in the interaction with professor Kaushik Basu.
On June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi had announced a national emergency in view of “threats to national security”. During the emergency, opposition leaders were arrested, censorship was imposed and a ban was announced on grassroots organisations which lasted for a period of 21 months.
