Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Congress leader and former UPA minister Jyotiraditya Scindia today said the Emergency was a "mistake" and what happened during the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 was "wrong".
"Why can't we say together what happened during Emergency is wrong. Let us not go back and forth on it. What happened in the Sikh riots is wrong. Any loss of life in the country irrespective of which government is in power, we need to say what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong," Mr Scindia said speaking at the 13th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in a session moderated by NDTV's Barkha Dutt.
Mr Scindia said that people of the country feel that there has been enough of "tu tu main main" (bickering) about wrongs happening during the rule of one party or the other.
The Lok Sabha MP from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Scindia, is also the Congress chief whip in the Lower House. In the ongoing Parliament session, his party had targeted the ruling BJP for incidents of perceived intolerance in the country. The ruling party hit back saying the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the 1984 violence after her death were the worst instance of intolerance.
Asked to elaborate his views on the Emergency, Mr Scindia said that irrespective of what was the environment then, there is also a need to look at the issue contextually, "at the end of the day if you if you hail our country for being the world's largest democracy, you have got to stand for democratic values".
Disapproving of "any action, which throttles the freedom of speech and expression", the Congress leader said, "Emergency was a mistake" for our country when asked whether it was a blot on the nation.
Mr Scindia's remarks come days after senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said the ban imposed on Salman Rushdie's controversial novel The Satanic Verses during the regime of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was wrong.
Participating in a session on "The Challenges Before Us", Mr Scindia targeted the BJP-led government on the issue of perceived intolerance and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "not speaking out" on such incidents.