BJP slams Trinamool Congress on 50th anniversary of Emergency imposed by Congress

Kolkata, June 25 (IANS) On the issue of the Emergency imposed in India in 1975, the Trinamool Congress came under equal political attack like that of the Congress by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders on Wednesday, which marks the 50th year of the black chapter in the Indian democracy.

Senior BJP leaders including Amit Malviya, the party's IT Cell Chief and the central observer for West Bengal, had claimed that it was natural for the Trinamool Congress or West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party followers to justify the act imposing the Emergency by former Indian Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi in 1975.

Malviya, while justifying his arguments, on this point had referred to the entry and rise of Mamata Banerjee in politics initially with Congress under the mentorship of the former West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, often being termed as the main legal brain of Indira Gandhi and one of the architects of the Emergency in 1975.

According to BJP leader Malviya, the legacy of Mamata Banerjee prompted her to recently announce that "Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas" as mandated by the Union government would not be observed in West Bengal on Wednesday.

"West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee says she opposes observing the 50th anniversary of the Emergency as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas'. No surprise there. Mamata Banerjee's political career began as a loyal foot soldier of Siddhartha Shankar Ray — the chief architect of Indira Gandhi's Emergency, who unleashed brutal repression on Bengal to silence all dissent. Those who resisted the Emergency in Bengal remember clearly: Mamata Banerjee, Subrata Mukherjee, and Somen Mitra rose through the ranks because of their loyalty to the Congress during this dark chapter," he said in a statement.

In the statement, BJP leader Malviya also recollected on the reported event of Mamata Banerjee, as youth and woman Congress leader, clambering onto the vehicle of the architect of anti- Emergency movement J.P. Narayan in 1975.

"She later admitted she opposed JP's agitation -- an agitation that was defending the Constitution from a corrupt, power-drunk regime," the BJP leader added.

Earlier in the day, while refuting an X post from Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and former journalist Sagarika Ghose where she indirectly justified the Emergency imposed in 1975 and claimed that the Emergency was prompted because the RSS was pushing India towards anarchy, Malviya claimed that Ghose's statement proved that Trinamool Congress was carrying the same "dynasty-driven, authoritarian mindset" of Congress that led the grand old party to impose Emergency in India in 1975.

However, Ghose throughout the day carried on with her arguments justifying her previous statement on why she said that the Emergency was prompted because the RSS was pushing India towards anarchy.

She cited examples of how the anti-Indira Gandhi movement at Patna in the then undivided Bihar gained relevance due to huge RSS network and ABVP activists who controlled the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti and were the principal organisers of the agitation.

In her reaction, state BJP leader in West Bengal, Keya Ghosh, also a former journalist, claimed that the events of Ghose indirectly justifying the 1975 Emergency or Mamata Banerjee opposing observing of "Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas" in West Bengal proved that the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal was nothing but an offshoot of Congress.

"Trinamool Congress can never understand sacrifice, because their politics is built on blind obedience and inherited power. Emergency wasn't just a Congress crime... Rather, it was a mindset that Trinamool Congress is proudly carrying forward," Keya Ghosh said.

--IANS

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