New Delhi, June 25 (IANS). Bharatiya Janata Party will celebrate ‘Constitution Murder Day’ on Thursday to mark 51 years of Emergency imposed in the country. On this occasion, the party will organize special programs in many states of the country including Bihar, Haryana. The BJP says the emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975, had caused serious damage to democratic institutions and civil liberties.
On this occasion, BJP has planned several programs across the country, the aim of which is to convey to the people the incidents that happened during the Emergency and its effects.
Large scale programs will be organized on this occasion in Bihar. Various events will be held at around 90,000 booths in the state. At Patna’s Gyan Bhawan, Union Health Minister JP Nadda will honor about 450 ‘JP fighters’ and ‘democracy fighters’ who were involved in the anti-Emergency movement.
In a joint press conference held at the BJP’s Bihar state office, party state vice president and former MLA Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul and Pawan Jaiswal alleged that during the Emergency, the fundamental rights of citizens were limited and attempts were made to weaken democratic institutions to retain political power.
Pawan Jaiswal told that from June 30 to July 6, worker conferences will be organized in all the 52 organizational districts of Bihar. Apart from this, student conferences will also be organized in five administrative divisions of the state under the joint aegis of BJP’s Youth and Mahila Morcha.
At the same time, BJP leaders in Haryana also described the Emergency as one of the darkest periods of Indian democracy. In a press conference held at Panchkamal, the party headquarters in Panchkula, Yamunanagar MLA Ghanshyam Das Arora said that the Congress, which talks about saving the Constitution, should first introspect on its actions during the Emergency.
He alleged that at that time democratic rights were suppressed, the autonomy of institutions was weakened and restrictions were also imposed on freedom of expression. Thousands of democracy fighters, political activists, journalists and social activists were jailed, while strict censorship was imposed on the media.
Ghanshyam Das Arora said that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh had launched movements across the country for the restoration of democracy while opposing the Emergency.
He said that the purpose of celebrating ‘Constitution Murder Day’ is to honor the people who struggled to protect democracy and to make the new generation aware of the history of the Emergency and its consequences. A special program will also be organized by Haryana BJP at Atal Auditorium in Panchkula on Thursday evening at 5 pm.
–IANS
VKU/DKP