Those who imposed Emergency have no right to profess love for Constitution, says PM Modi on 1975 Emergency anniversary

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pic/PTI

On the 1975 Emergency anniversary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that its dark days are a reminder of how the Congress subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution which every Indian respects greatly.

Hitting out at the main opposition party, he said in posts on X that those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess their love for our Constitution.

PM Modi said, "These are the same people who have imposed Article 356 on innumerable occasions, got a Bill to destroy press freedom, destroyed federalism and violated every aspect of the Constitution."

"The mindset which led to the imposition of the Emergency is very much alive among the same Party which imposed it. They hide their disdain for the Constitution through their tokenism but the people of India have seen through their antics and that is why they have rejected them time and again," he said.

Just to cling on to power, the then Congress Government disregarded every democratic principle and turned the nation into a jail, PM Modi said, adding that any person who disagreed with the party was tortured and harassed.

"Socially regressive policies were unleashed to target the weakest sections," he said.

On June 25, 1975, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, a Congress stalwart, imposed an Emergency in the country, suspending civil liberties, jailing opposition leaders and dissidents and effecting press censorship.

The prime minister said the anniversary on Tuesday is a day to pay homage to all those great men and women who resisted the Emergency.

The first day of the 18th Lok Sabha on Monday witnessed a war of words between Prime Minister Modi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge over the imposition of Emergency.

The BJP launched a sharp attack on the Congress on the 1975 Emergency anniversary, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah saying it is the biggest example of the opposition party's long history of killing democracy and harming it repeatedly.

BJP president J P Nadda said on 'X' that those who claim to be the guardians of Indian democracy today had spared no efforts to suppress the voices raised in the defence of constitutional values.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the Emergency, imposed by the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 before she lifted it in 1977 and called for elections, is a black chapter in Indian democracy which cannot be forgotten.

Dictatorship and misuse of power were on brazen display during the period, Singh said on 'X', adding that it raises a big question mark on the commitment to democracy of several political parties.

The BJP's trenchant criticism of the Congress came amid a coordinated campaign by opposition parties to paint the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as working against the Constitution.