E-Paper
Demonstrations mark 30th anniversary of Emergency
DEMONSTRATIONS BY different organisations in Varanasi and adjoining districts marked the 30th anniversary of emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
DEMONSTRATIONS BY different organisations in Varanasi and adjoining districts marked the 30th anniversary of emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Activists of the Communist Party of India (M-L) staged a dharna at district headquarters on Monday to observe the ‘Emergency Protest Day’.
While criticising the previous Congress regimes specially the one led by Gandhi, the leaders compared Mulayam Singh Yadav’s regime with Indira’s.
The leaders said democracy was under threat under Yadav’s rule. They alleged the SP-led State Government was freeing SP activists and leaders involved in many cases, whereas leaders of Opposition parties including activists of CPI (M-L) were being harassed by the state machinery in the name of crushing Naxal movement.
CPI (M-L) leaders including Prashant Shukla, Gagan Prakash and Vivek Yadav said there was there no law and order in UP and the masses had to fend for themselves. They alleged the government’s nonchalant attitude towards the public was evident in the issuing of ‘job card’ under the National Rural Employment Scheme of the Union Government.
They said job cards were not distributed to the poor in villages in the identified districts.
The leaders said the police of unemployment dole for the people was just to lure voters.
They said the condition of weavers was the worst currently.
Meanwhile, in Gorakhpur recalling the imposition of Emergency in the country as a dark period in history of the Indian democracy, the Samajwadi Party (SP) activists observed the day as ‘kalank diwas’. They staged a dharna at the district magistrate’s office and handed over a memorandum to the DM to be forwarded to the President. The SP activists were demanding equal status of the savers of democracy to those responsible for the Emergency.
Terming those arrested during the Emergency as freedom fighters, party activists demanded they should be provides equal status to freedom fighters and they should be granted pension and other facilities.
Former district president of the party Gopal Yadav, former member of Parliament Firangi Prasad Bisharad and Dr Mohsin said the ideology of the Congress was against the spirit of democracy.
