Congress escaping by blaming individual for Emergency: BJP

NEW DELHI - The Congress is not owning up to the Emergency excesses and is trying to blame an individual for this, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Wednesday and faulted its portrayal, in a book brought out to mark the party’s 125 years, of the anti-government struggle under Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s.

“The Congress is seeking to shift responsibility. Congress always tries to escape responsibility for its mistakes by putting blame on an individual,” BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain said here.

Referring to the book “The Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation” edited by senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee, Hussain said the Congress has acknowledged the mistake of the Emergency but has sought to shift the blame for the excesses committed during the June 1975-March 1977 period.

Without directly mentioning Sanjay Gandhi, who is mentioned in the book as having taken various measures in an “arbitrary and authoritarian” manner, Hussain said the Congress always tries to escape from its responsibility by blaming an individual.

Sanjay Gandhi’s mother Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister, had imposed the Emergency on the night of June 25, 1975. Till it was lifted March 21 1977, during which a large number of leaders and activists of major non-Congress were jailed.

Hussain also noted that the Congress had sought to blame then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao for the events leading to the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya on Dec 6, 1992.

“Earlier they talked of a former prime minister. Now they are shifting the blame for the Emergency,” he said, adding that Indira Gandhi was strong enough to take decisions on her own.

Asked if the BJP held Sanjay Gandhi responsible for the Emergency excesses, Hussain said all Congressmen, “including him (Sanjay Gandhi)”, were responsible.

Sanjay Gandhi, who died in an air crash in 1980, was Indira Gandhi’s younger son and the husband of Maneka Gandhi, who is now a BJP MP.

Objecting to the reference in the book to Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement as “extra-constitutional and undemocratic”, Hussain said it was a people’s movement. JP, as he was popularly known, had led the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and had called for a peaceful Total Revolution.

Hussain said people had punished the Congress for Emergency excesses. The Congress was voted out of power for the first time since Independence in the general elections held in 1977.

Drawing a parallel with the government’s refusal to accept the opposition’s demand for Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam, Hussain said that Congress has a habit of realising its mistakes belatedly.

“When history is written 30 years later, it will be mentioned that Congress did not accept demand of JPC under pressure,” Hussain said.

Maintaining that scams this year had caused a loss of Rs.2.5 lakh crore to the exchequer, he said that the government has to explain how the money will be recovered.

The BJP leader said that the government should agree to a JPC on “2G spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Adarsh Society scams”.