Congress' invocation of Constitution merely smokescreen BJP

     New Delhi, Jun 27 (PTI) The BJP attacked the Congress on Thursday for objecting to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's condemnation of Emergency, claiming that this shows the opposition party's intentions are not right and its invocation of the Constitution is merely a smokescreen.
     BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Congress begins squirming at the mention of the Emergency, which was imposed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975.
     Referring to Emergency as "the sin of the murder of democracy", he asked, "Why should not this black chapter in the Indian democracy be discussed."
     He noted that the Congress never apologised for imposing the Emergency.
     Prasad's remarks to the media came after Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Birla and voiced his displeasure over the Lok Sabha speaker's critical statement on Wednesday in the House on the Emergency. Gandhi claimed it was "clearly political" and could have been avoided.
     Later, Congress leader K C Venugopal also wrote to Birla, expressing the party's displeasure over his statement on Emergency as his first task after assuming office.
     Defending Birla's stand, Prasad said it is necessary to tell the country why it was imposed.
     President Droupadi Murmu also condemned the Emergency in her address to a joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday.
     The Congress continues to carry this sin and begins squirming at its very mention, BJP leader Prasad said, noting that the opposition leaders were arrested, RSS activists were tortured, thousands of people were forced to undergo vasectomy and media was put under censorship among the Emergency's numerous accesses.
     Taking a swipe at the Congress's current allies like Akhilesh Yadav, M K Stalin and Tejashwi Yadav, he said they should remember the excesses of Emergency.
     While the DMK government in Tamil Nadu was dismissed, Tajashwi Yadav's father and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad was arrested. Akhilesh's father Mulayam Singh Yadav was also imprisoned.
     Congress leaders are carrying copies of the Constitution and it is clearly a smokescreen, Prasad claimed.
     It is a matter of pride that the country defeated the forces behind Emergency, he said.
     Meanwhile, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla termed Venugopal’s letter to Birla “bizarre” and asked if the Congress still believes that imposition of Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government was right.
     He claimed that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had once justified the imposition of Emergency.
     “In an interview, he said that his mother (Indira Gandhi) did the right thing by imposing Emergency and that he can also do so,” the BJP spokesperson told a press conference at the party headquarters here.
     Poonawalla said that former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel recently said that Indira Gandhi had imposed a “declared Emergency” because she was “courageous”.
     “This means that the Congress still has the Emergency mindset. It endorses what Indira Gandhi did 50 years ago and perhaps it plans to do the same thing if they ever get an opportunity again. Therefore people of India should be very careful about giving them any opportunity,” he added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)