Indira Gandhi was likened to German dictator Adolf Hitler by Arun Jaitley. (File)
Highlights
- BJP launches attack on Congress on anniversary of Emergency of 1975
- Arun Jaitley draws comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Indira Gandhi
- Mr Jaitley calls himself the "first Satyagrahi during the Emergency"
As the BJP today launched an all-out attack on the Congress on the Emergency of 1974, union minister Arun Jaitley drew parallels between then prime minister Indira Gandhi and Adolf Hitler in a Facebook post, stating that both had turned democracy into dictatorship.
In the
blog that was shared on social media by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Jaitley said unlike Hitler, Indira Gandhi went a step ahead to transform India into a "dynastic democracy".
Indira Gandhi, the mother of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and the grandmother of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, ruled India between 1966 and 1984. The Emergency she ordered in the early hours of June 26, 1975, is described as the "darkest period in democracy" by the BJP, which marks the day with protests.
"Both Hitler and Mrs. Gandhi never abrogated the Constitution. They used a republican Constitution to transform democracy into dictatorship. Hitler arrested most of the opposition Members of Parliament and converted his minority Government in Parliament into a 2/3rd majority government," Mr Jaitley wrote.
He also commented that constitutional provisions were used to turn democracy into a "constitutional dictatorship".
A Nazi leader proclaimed that Germany had only one authority and that was the authority of "Fuehrer" (Hitler), wrote Mr Jaitley. "Similarly, (Congress) president Devakanta Barua proclaimed 'Indira is India and India is Indira'."
Arun Jaitley has posted on Facebook the second of a three-part series on Emergency.
This is the second in a
series of Facebook posts by the senior minister, who has earlier too likened Indira Gandhi to the reviled German dictator over the Emergency, when the Congress government suspended important fundamental rights, imposed severe restrictions on the media and jailed several opposition leaders and activists.
Mr Jaitley said Hitler, who became the German Chancellor on January 30, 1933, had his President invoke Emergency powers in the constitution in the name of protecting people. "The decree giving emergency powers put restrictions on personal liberty, free speech... The pretext for imposition of Emergency was that on February 27, 1933, German Parliament House, known as 'Reichstag', had been set on fire. Hitler claimed that it was a communist conspiracy to burn Government buildings and museums. Thirteen years later, in the Nuremberg trials, it was established that Reichstag fire was the handiwork of Nazis and Goebbels had conceived it."
Mr Jaitley was jailed for organising a protest hours after the Emergency order.
The minister said the emergency measures diluted the power of High Courts to issue writ petitions, "a power which Dr. (BR) Ambedkar had said was the very heart and soul of India's constitution". "They also amended Article 368 so that a Constitution amendment was beyond judicial review. There were a few things that Hitler did not do which Gandhi did.
Indira Gandhi amended both the constitution and the Representation of People Act so that her election could be validated, he wrote.