Escalating its counter to the ‘Save Constitution’ campaign that Congress and its partners started against BJP in the build-up to the Lok Sabha polls, the Centre notified June 25, the anniversary of the imposition of the emergency in the country in 1975 by the then PM Indira Gandhi, as ‘Samvidhan Hatya Diwas’.
“(It is)… a tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross misuse of power during the period of emergency and also recommit people of India to not support in any manner such gross misuse of power in future,” the union home ministry stated in its gazette notification.
“On June 25, 1975, the then PM Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of our democracy by imposing emergency on the nation. Millions of people were thrown behind bars for no fault of their own, and the voice of the media was silenced,” home minister Amit Shah wrote on X.
BJP has been smarting under the realisation that Congress and other constituents of INDIA bloc managed to hurt the party’s prospects in UP, Maharashtra and Rajasthan in the LS polls by unleashing the “false propaganda” that BJP would change the constitution to scrap caste quotas if it won over 400 seats. BJP’s own assessment, with which many independent political circles concur, was that the charge was effective in turning a large section of Dalits away from the party and nudging them towards the INDIA bloc.
Shah further said, “The decision made by the govt led by PM Narendra Modi ji is intended to honour the spirit of millions who struggled to revive democracy despite facing inexplicable persecution at the hands of an oppressive govt.”
