Former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy, thinker Chi Su Krishnamurthy, BJP MLC C T Ravi and others take a look at a photo displayed in an exhibition on 50 years of the Emergency in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
Credit: DH Photo
BJP parliamentary board member B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday accused former prime minister Indira Gandhi of ‘sacrificing’ the Constitution for the sake of power.
“During the Emergency, the fundamental rights of the people were taken away. Independent voices were crushed, press freedom was curbed and democracy was uprooted,” he said, speaking at the programme ‘50 Years of the Emergency’ organised by the Citizens for Social Justice Forum here.
“The Congress party, which was at the forefront of the freedom movement, did such a thing (imposed Emergency) after coming to power in independent India,” he said.
RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy said: “After the 2024 elections, Rahul Gandhi started displaying a copy of the Constitution and spoke of saving the Constitution. Didn’t he know that his grandmother had ‘suspended’ the Constitution during the Emergency. Does the Congress, which imposed the Emergency, have the moral and legal right to speak about the Constitution, constitutional rights and freedom?”
“Common people like Jayaprakash Narayan fought against the Emergency. The non-Congress government which came to power after the Emergency did not punish Congress leaders responsible for it. After that, the Congress came back to power. In the next 34 years (1980-2014), those responsible for the Emergency were in power for 28 years. They successfully erased the bitter memories of the
Emergency.”