PM pays back Advani’s Emergency compliment

About a week back party patriarch Lal Krishna Advani had claimed that there were no signs in <g data-gr-id="57" style="display: inline; color: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; -webkit-background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA+gAAAACCAYAAADLlPadAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAKklEQVRYhe3OQQEAIAgEsMM6xrMb9SQGny3B6vb7AQAAAFad7QAAAACQDAGHAlfrnYEmAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC), url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAACCAYAAACZgbYnAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAEklEQVQImWNY/ejYfyYGBgYGABiLA1VQQvxSAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; background-position: 200% 100%, 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;">Indian</g> polity which assured him that Emergency wouldn’t be imposed in India again. This had drawn cheers from the Opposition benches as it was seen to be directed at the Prime Minister.

This was followed by a statement from former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, who claimed that the party leadership has decided to declare all those beyond the age of 75 as brain dead. With party’s new leadership in the dock and the sulking older generation firing volleys, Modi needed an opportune moment to serve a return. He chose the 40th anniversary of imposition of emergency to put forth 

his rebuff.

Modi on Thursday said nobody can forget June 25th and 26th when the nation was turned into a jail and bound with chains of Emergency for <g data-gr-id="35" style="display: inline; color: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; -webkit-background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA+gAAAACCAYAAADLlPadAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAKklEQVRYhe3OQQEAIAgEsMM6xrMb9SQGny3B6vb7AQAAAFad7QAAAACQDAGHAlfrnYEmAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC), url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAACCAYAAACZgbYnAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAEklEQVQImWNY/ejYfyYGBgYGABiLA1VQQvxSAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; background-position: 200% 100%, 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;">lust</g> of power 40 years back. “But today the government wants to preserve the dreams under which all citizens prosper under a democratic system,” Modi said casting aside Advani’s barb where he said, “I do not say leadership is not mature. But I do not have the confidence that it (Emergency) cannot happen again.”

Preparing the ground for PM’s snub to Advani, the union cabinet a day earlier decided to set up a national memorial for Jaya Prakash Narayan, the iconic leader of the resistance movement, at his birthplace Lala Ka Tola, Chapra in Bihar. PM also chose the occasion to launch a blistering attack on the Congress saying, “Lakhs of patriots nursing the dream of ‘Sampoorna Kranti’ under the leadership of JP were jailed.” He, however, desisted from taking <g data-gr-id="40" style="display: inline; color: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; -webkit-background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA+gAAAACCAYAAADLlPadAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAKklEQVRYhe3OQQEAIAgEsMM6xrMb9SQGny3B6vb7AQAAAFad7QAAAACQDAGHAlfrnYEmAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC), url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAACCAYAAACZgbYnAAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAAAEklEQVQImWNY/ejYfyYGBgYGABiLA1VQQvxSAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-size: 0px 2px, 100% 2px; background-position: 200% 100%, 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat;">name</g> of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

That neither Modi nor Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh had taken kindly to Advani’s remarks was evident when BJP president Amit Shah and other party leaders were invited for the function held at Delhi’s Mavalankar Hall on Thursday, but not Advani, to mark 40 years of the draconian phase.

Pushing forth that he was as much a democrat as his mentor Advani, the Prime Minister earlier in the day had said, “We want to persevere those dreams (of fighting Emergency) so that every citizen prospers under that democratic system.”