India / ‘I salute those who defended democracy during Emergency’: PM

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to people who opposed the Emergency imposed by the Congress led government at the Centre, saying the country will never forget their sacrifice.

“The Emergency was imposed in the country exactly 45 years ago. The people who struggled to defend the democracy at that time, I salute them. The country will never forget their sacrifice,” PM Modi tweeted in Hindi on Thursday.

आज से ठीक 45 वर्ष पहले देश पर आपातकाल थोपा गया था। उस समय भारत के लोकतंत्र की रक्षा के लिए जिन लोगों ने संघर्ष किया, यातनाएं झेलीं, उन सबको मेरा शत-शत नमन! उनका त्याग और बलिदान देश कभी नहीं भूल पाएगा। pic.twitter.com/jlQVJQVrsX

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 25, 2020

The Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975.

PM Modi attached a clip of his Mann ki Baat radio address last year in which he had spoken about the Emergency era. The Congress government at the Centre was headed by Indira Gandhi at that time.

PM Modi’s tweet comes hours after home minister Amit Shah posed a few questions before the Congress and gave some advice to the Opposition party.

“As one of India’s opposition parties, Congress needs to ask itself: Why does the Emergency mindset remain? Why are leaders who don’t belong to 1 dynasty unable to speak up? Why are leaders getting frustrated in Congress? Else, their disconnect with people will keep widening,” he tweeted on Thursday.

He indirectly targeted the Gandhi family by talking about the dynasty and claimed that leaders in the Congress are getting frustrated.

The war of words has been going on between the BJP and the Congress since the June 15 skirmish in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley. The Congress has targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of giving away Indian territory to China.

PM Modi had asserted at the all-party meeting that “no one has entered our territory, no one is at present within our territory and no one has occupied our posts”. This was in reference to the situation in the Galwan Valley after Indian Army’s brave action to thwart Chinese attempts to erect a structure on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

BJP chief JP Nadda had attacked the Congress party for questioning the government’s stand on June 15 face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh. He said that “a rejected and ejected dynasty is not equal to the entire Opposition”.