PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, June 25: On the 50th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency in India, former Jharkhand chief minister and senior BJP leader Raghubar Das launched a scathing attack on the Congress party, accusing it of crushing the Constitution and throttling democracy for the sake of power.
He was addressing a press conference organized by BJP Jamshedpur Mahanagar at the district office in Sakchi on Wednesday as part of the party’s nationwide awareness campaign.
Calling the Emergency of June 25, 1975, the “blackest chapter in India’s democratic history,” Das said, “On that night, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in sheer lust for power, trampled the Constitution and turned the entire country into a prison.”
He added that Congress had no moral right to speak on democracy, having once been responsible for its brutal suppression.
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Also present at the press meet were city BJP president Sudhanshu Ojha, former district president and co-speaker for the Emergency programme Abhay Singh, campaign co-convener Jatashankar Pandey, district vice-president and event coordinator Babua Singh, media in-charge Prem Jha, and co-media in-charge Akhil Singh.
Das revisited the events that led to the Emergency, highlighting the Allahabad High Court’s June 12, 1975, verdict disqualifying Indira Gandhi from the Lok Sabha and barring her from contesting elections.
“To save her chair, she declared Emergency at midnight without cabinet approval, pushing the nation into darkness by getting the order signed by the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed,” he stated.
The BJP leader recalled that prominent opposition leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Morarji Desai, and others were jailed overnight.
Press freedom was muzzled, the judiciary came under pressure, and fundamental rights were suspended, he added.
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Sharing his personal experience during the Emergency, Das said he was an 18-year-old student involved in the youth movement under the local Sangh unit at Bhalubasa.
After learning about the Emergency from a source, he went into hiding. A few days later, he was arrested and imprisoned — first in Jamshedpur jail and then shifted to Gaya Central Jail on August 16. “That phase of my life was transformative. My mother stood by me in that struggle,” he recounted.
He also recalled the police firing near Basant Talkies in Jamshedpur on July 10, 1975, during a student protest, where several youth were injured.
The spot is now remembered as ‘Shaheed Chowk’. “Jayaprakash Narayan himself came to Jamshedpur twice during the movement and led from the front. The people responded with the clarion call: ‘Vacate the Throne’, and in the 1977 elections, the autocratic Congress government was ousted,” Das added, paying homage to all who fought for democracy during the period.
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Das urged the central government to incorporate the truth of the Emergency in school curricula, just like the history of the freedom struggle, so future generations understand how democracy was subverted for political gain.
He accused Congress of misusing Article 356 during its long rule to dismiss over 90 non-Congress state governments and said the party had repeatedly undermined constitutional values while pretending to uphold them.
