Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a “mistake” but sought to differentiate the situation in 1975 and now in terms of “capture of democratic institutions”.
In an online conversation with Cornell University Professor of Economics and chief economic advisor to the Manmohan Sigh government Kaushik Basu, Mr Gandhi said what happened in 1975 was “wrong” but it was fundamentally different from the present where, he alleged, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has “penetrated every institutions including judiciary, bureaucracy, election commission and the press”.
Also read: After BJP slams Emergency, Congress hits back describing BJP’s rule as ‘government of two people’
Discussing democracy, Mr Gandhi claimed “democracy was not just eroding but it has been a strangled” ever since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014.
“I think that was a mistake. Absolutely, that was a…