NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Pranab criticises BJP 'propaganda' on emergency

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Congress on Thursday hit back at the Vajpayee government's offensive on the Emergency dismissing it as 'mere event management to avoid uncomfortable questions on governance'.

Senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee told reporters that "the BJP-orchestrated campaign is just another chapter in the saffron party's vile campaign to denigrate the Gandhi family. Earlier, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani had tried to undermine the importance of India's 1971 victory over Pakistan."

"The Bharatiya Janata Party is resorting to crude propaganda to distract attention 'from its inability to govern'. Earlier, it was the call for a constitutional review. Governance has been reduced to a media relations exercise," he pointed out.

Mukherjee described emergency as 'a period of history that has been analysed and re-analysed ad nauseam'. He argued that Indira Gandhi revoked the emergency and went to the polls despite knowing 'she and her party would be buried in a landslide vote against them'.

"How was democracy undermined?" he asked in response to the Vajpayee government's broadside on the emergency.

Mukherjee suggested that the BJP pay more attention to governance and not allow itself to be hijacked by its populist allies, such as Ram Vilas Paswan and Mamata Banerjee.

He asserted that the Congress is gearing up to take on the challenges posed by the BJP's 'sheer ineptitude'. It was unable to prevent or stop attacks on Christians, tackle the sensitive situation in Kashmir or the people's economic problems.

He alleged the government was clueless about dealing with the challenges posed by India's membership of the World Trade Organisation.

"The government was unable to do anything about the Fiji crisis or to resolve the Sri Lankan crisis. In Nepal, the government refused to receive the Indian ambassador," Mukherjee alleged.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report