By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR:Constitution Assassination Day is a dark chapter in the history of Indian democracy. The Congress has repeatedly tried to assassinate democracy and the Constitution in the country. The Emergency imposed by the Congress 51 years ago is a prime example of this. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the first Emergency in India on the midnight of 25 June 1975.
The Allahabad High Court had disqualified her from the post of member of Parliament, citing that she had misused the power of government and defeated her rival Raj Narayan in the 1971 general elections. At this time, Mrs. Gandhi had declared a state of emergency in 1975 by invoking Article 356 to illegally act as the Prime Minister. For 21 months until March 1977, the Congress government had ruled India by tyranny and changed the face of the Constitution. During this time, attempts were made to seize power undemocratically by killing the fundamental rights mentioned in the Constitution, including freedom of the individual, freedom of the press, and independence of the judiciary. In particular, the media and student movements were suppressed undemocratically.
More than 3 lakh people who opposed this emergency, including leaders of non-Congress political parties, satyagrahis, intellectuals and journalists, were forcibly imprisoned under the “Misha Act”. Along with Jayaprakash Narayan, former Prime Ministers Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Moraji Desai, George Fernandes, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Vijayaraje Scindia, Ashwani Choubey, Arun Jaitley were among the prominent jailers. Similarly, in Odisha, Dr. More than 1200 Satyagrahis and more than 300 students, youth and politicians including Harekrushna Mahatab, Biju Patnaik, Nabakrushna Chowdhury, Ravi Roy were arrested and sent to jail. The constitutional rights of crores of people of the country were violated in order to keep a particular family in power.
The spirit of the Constitution was violated by imposing a state of emergency on the people of the country and the civil rights of the citizens were taken away. The entire country was pushed into the darkness of fear and oppression. The criminals who killed the Constitution are now raising empty slogans to save the Constitution. State in-charge Shri Vijayapal Singh Tomar said that the Emergency is an “olive black mark” in the history of India since independence.
