Those Behind Emergency Talk About Intolerance: Arun Jaitley Takes on Congres
NEW DELHI: Opening a special discussion on Constitution in the Rajya Sabha today, Arun Jaitley took digs at the Congress 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.
The Finance minister gave a point-by-point rebuttal to the Congress party’s allegations in the Lok Sabha, where the discussion began yesterday.
“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 C that if Article 21 was suspended – and it was suspendable – the citizens of India have lost the right to life and liberty. This was dictactorship 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.
“Dangers to the constitutional order can come when constitutional systems are used to subvert them,” 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 the events that led to Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany and said: “We need to be reminded of our history.”
Mr Jaitley appeared to mock the statement coined by a past Congress leader on former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who imposed Emergency rule and jailed several opposition leaders – “Indira is India and India is Indira.”
The minister said that Hitler’s advisor always ended his speech with a sentence: “Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler.”
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.”
Read full article: NDTV
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