On the fiftieth years of anniversary of the Emergencies declared by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1975, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other RSS/BJP leaders rightly began a vicious propaganda against the Congress.
As Prime Minister, he compared the Emergency to a continuation of the Congress party`s blatant disregard for the Constitution by subverting basic freedoms and trampling over the Constitution, which he posted on Twitter.
The BJP tried to depict the Emergency as a black spot in the history that the Congress aimed to hide. Charged Home Minister Amit Shah accused the Congress party of having ‘murdered’ democracy in the past, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh lauded the indomitable spirit of those who fought the Emergency to keep India’s democracy alive.
In return, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said PM Modi has not paid adequate attention to an ‘undeclared emergency’ in the last 10 years. During the Meeting, the Opposition proved good coordination in the Parliament where some MPs held copies of the Constitution.
The Congress’s Rahul Gandhi said they would prevent an ‘assault on the Constitution’ planning to be inflicted on India by PM Modi and Home Minister Shah.
The BJP is on the offensive, seemingly to respond to the opposition’s narrative of ‘safeguarding the Constitution’ before the parliament’s summer session. The confrontation reveals how the contemporary political conflict between the ruling party and the opposition plays out each trying to claim the legacy of the Emergency.
