Finance Minister Arun Jaitley speaking in Parliament during Constitution discussion
Arun Jaitley today took digs at the Congress during a special discussion on the Constitution and compared the 1975 Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government to Hitler's Germany. "Those who talk about intolerance snatched the right to life and liberty," he said.
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, the Finance minister gave a point-by-point rebuttal to comments by the Congress and other opposition parties in the Lok Sabha, where the discussion began yesterday to mark the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, the architect of India's Constitution.
"During the 1970s, one of the biggest challenges we faced was Article 21 (of the Constitution) was suspended and the government succeeded in convincing the Supreme Court that if Article 21 was suspended - and it was suspendable - the citizens of India have lost the right to life and liberty. This was dictatorship at its worst. The biggest right is the right to life. Today if someone comes in front of the cameras and gives an irresponsible comment, we call it intolerance," Mr Jaitley said.
"After the Emergency, article 21 was made non-suspendable, which means we are far more safe today. People who supported the Emergency are now talking about constitutionality. People lost the right to live during the Emergency," he said.
When some opposition members protested that there was no comparison, he shot back: "Of course there is no comparison. It is the difference between a mouse and a molehill."
He went on to list events that led to Hitler's dictatorship in Germany and said: "We need to be reminded of our history."
Mr Jaitley commented that Hitler's adviser always ended his speech with a sentence: "Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler."
He did not say it but the comment echoed a statement coined by a Congress leader in the past on former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who imposed Emergency rule - "Indira is India and India is Indira."
Yesterday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha: "There cannot be a bigger joke than those who never had faith in the Constitution nor had they participated in its drafting, are now swearing by it and are laying claim to it."