‘Undeclared Emergency now’: Congress hits back, says BJP staging ‘drama’ to hide governance failures

“Emergency has been imposed by you now. This is undeclared Emergency,” Kharge said, adding, “That Emergency has passed and an amendment in the Constitution has also been done. When that amendment was proposed, Indira Gandhi herself had supported Morarji Desai.”

Kharge also called the BJP’s programmes on the Emergency a “drama” designed to cover up the failure of the government on inflation and unemployment. The government, he said, was unable to reply to questions related to corruption, economic distress, unemployment, demonetisation and black money.

Kharge added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was doing “drama” to snuff out the enthusiasm among people because of Rahul Gandhi’s nationwide outreach programme, ‘Samvidhan Bachao Yatra’.

“The Constitution is in a crisis today because of you…not because of anybody else. You have dragged the Constitution into a crisis. You are destroying the country,” Kharge added.

“Where is the freedom of expression and freedom of movement? You do not tolerate it when somebody…makes a suggestion in the national interest. Students are framed as traitors, journalists are put in jail. Mistakes pointed out by channels (news) and magazines in their write-ups are not accepted. Only speeches do not fill the stomach. The country needs ration too,” Kharge said.

He also hit out at the Election Commission, calling it a “kathputli (puppet)”. “You have taken hold of that puppet and are winning elections. You are not winning elections, it is your machine that is winning,” Kharge said.

“You (EC) do what Modi says…thank you very much for what you are doing for Modi,” Kharge said, questioning why elections were not being held using ballot paper. “Why the entire world is using ballots? Why don’t you? We demand that elections should be conducted using ballot paper. We will keep raising this demand,” Kharge said.

Earlier, the Congress had alleged that over the past 11 years, Indian democracy has been under a “systematic and dangerous” five-fold assault that can be best described as an “Undeclared Emergency@11” and that the government was weakening Parliament and eroding the autonomy of constitutional bodies.

In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, alleged that government critics have been routinely vilified, hate and bigotry are deliberately spread by the ruling establishment, protesting farmers were labelled “Khalistanis”, and advocates of caste census were dismissed as “urban Naxals”.

“The killers of Mahatma Gandhi are glorified. Minorities live in fear for their lives and property. Dalits and other marginalised groups have been disproportionately targeted, and ministers making hate speeches have been rewarded with promotions,” he added.

Besides “unbridled hate speech and crackdown on civil liberties”, Ramesh also cited alleged “attacks on the Constitution, tax terrorism and intimidation of businesses and institutions, control over the media and misuse of investigative agencies”, to say that an “undeclared Emergency” was in place.