NEW DELHI: The feeling is drawing amongst India’s national opposition parties that Rajiv Gandhi might slap another emergency to avoid facing the general election due in December 1984.
Gandhi’s mother Indira Gandhi had declared a state of internal emergency in December 1974 All democratic norms are suspended as are the normal legal rights of the citizens. The country is run as a dictatorship for the duration of the emergency. Indira Gandhi was thrown out of office in the general elections which followed the lifting of the emergency in 1977
The manner in which Prime Minister Gandhi behaved in the Parliament during the recent controversy regarding the disclosures of the Thakkar commission report convinced the opposition that the Prime Minister would stoop to any level to keep the power.
Gandhi had alleged that opposition parties were in league with the freedom fighters fighting for an independent Sikh state of Khalistan opposition took strong stand to it and forced him to apologize for his remarks.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 24, 1989
