Veteran leaders gather at Uttar Pradesh minister’s residence, recall Emergency ordeal

Uttar Pradesh minister Surya Pratap Shahi recalled how the dreaded Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was invoked in his home district of Deoria during the Emergency

Veteran leaders and activists who had suffered during the Emergency gathered at the residence of Uttar Pradesh agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi on Sunday to observe the ‘black day’ and recall the ordeal they underwent during the 21-month period from June 25, 1975.

Uttar Pradesh agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi at a meeting on the Emergency in Lucknow on Sunday. (SOURCED)

Shahi was among those leaders who had seen the Emergency days. Uttar Pradesh minister Surya Pratap Shahi recalled how the dreaded Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was first invoked on Rajendra Kumar Shahi and the second on Ravindra Kishore Shahi, the former state chief of Jan Sangh (that later became BJP), in his home district of Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

“That was a very dreadful period,” said Shahi. UP’s finance minister Suresh Khanna, minister of state for agriculture Baldev Singh Aulakh, former UP assembly speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit and former UP minister Rajendra Tiwari were among the nearly 150 veterans of the Emergency days who were present on the occasion.

Tiwari praised the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government for raising the pension for those who had suffered during the Emergency.

Former MLC Vindhyavasini Kumar conducted the programme that also included veteran journalists, who had either suffered or witnessed the sufferings of the Emergency like K Vikram Rao, Achyutanand Mishra and JP Shukla. They also narrated their experiences of the time.