Today’s situation worse than Emergency: Arun Shourie

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Former Union minister Arun Shourie Sunday said ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a ‘great sense of remorse’ for imposing Emergency, but the situation today is ‘graver’ than it was in 1975-77. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s juggernaut can be stopped in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls if the entire Opposition unites and follows the principle of one candidate against the BJP in every seat.

The journalist-turned-politician was addressing a session on ‘Danger within the Judicial System’ at Tata Literature Festival in Mumbai. “In 1975 (Emergency) there was much better defined opponent. Today there is widespread opponent. I can tell you this, the difference between Gandhi and Narendra Modi is that Gandhi had a great sense of remorse about what she had done,” he said.

“Today, there is no remorse. In Gandhi’s case I feel, in spite of the fact that she put 1,75,000 people in jail, there was a sense of limit…isse aage nahi jana hai (not beyond this point). But today there is no sense of limit,” he added. The Emergency lasted for 19 months, but today there is much more sustained and relentless assault at undermining institutions, Shourie said. “…so I feel the situation now is much more graver than it was in 1975,” he added.