JOIN USDescribing Emergency as one of India's "darkest periods", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked the Congress for trampling over Indian democracy, saying the nation was bound with chains and turned into a jail 40 years back due to "lust for power".
Utilising the 40th anniversary of Emergency to target the then Indira Gandhi-led Congress government, Modi said a vibrant liberal democracy is the key to progress and that everything should be done to strengthen democratic ideals and ethos.
"We mark 40 years of one of India's darkest periods--the Emergency, when the then political leadership trampled over our democracy," he tweeted.
Emergency was declared on June 25, 1975 and continued till March 21, 1977, and the period was characterised by a brutal suppression of civil liberties and arrest of key political leaders who opposed Gandhi's action.