Agencies
NEW DELHI, JUNE 24
Days after veteran BJP leader LK Advani expressed fears that Emergency could return in future, his junior colleague and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that it was not possible.
Jaitley said Emergency (1975-77) was the darkest phase of independent India.
It is “not possible today for the world’s largest democracy to become dictatorial”, the minister added.
“I think, today the global awareness is in favour of the democracy and the kind of sanctions which can be imposed on a dictatorship itself can be a deterrent.
“I think, the media is also strong, the polity is strong and the global institutions are also strong. The world would not accept the world’s largest democracy becoming dictatorial today,” Jaitley told PTI.
Advani’s remarks were seen as aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi with whom he is understood to share an uneasy relationship.
The remarks had also triggered a lot of reactions with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, asking, “Is Delhi their first experiment?”
The AAP government in Delhi led by Kejriwal has been involved in a turf war with the Narendra Modi-led Centre over a number of issues, including transfers and postings bureaucrats. Kejriwal has accused Modi of trying to run the Delhi through the Lieutenant Governor.
In an interview to an English daily, Advani had said that an Emergency-like situation in future could not be ruled out.
“At the present point of time, the forces that can crush democracy, notwithstanding the constitutional and legal safeguards, are stronger,” Advani had said.
Since the imposition of Emergency during 1975-77, “I don’t think anything has been done that gives me the assurance that civil liberties will not be suspended or destroyed again. Not at all,” Advani had told The Indian Express.
“Of course, no one can do it easily… But that it cannot happen again — I will not say that. It could be that fundamental liberties are curtailed again,” he had added.
The remarks came ahead of the 40th anniversary of the imposition of the Emergency on June 25, 1975.
