‘Balasaheb Thackeray openly supported Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi’: Shiv Seva (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut

Sanjay Raut, in his weekly column Rokthok, published in Sena mouthpiece Saamana, took a dig at BJP’s ironical stand – one in support of Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray and the other against the 1975 Emergency.

Former Maharashtra CM and Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray. (Express archive)

Taking a dig at BJP’s ironical stand – one in support of Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray and the other against Emergency in 1975, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday said that the Shiv Sena founder had openly supported the Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.

Raut said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are seeking votes in the name of Thackeray. ”While PM Modi and Shah are railing against the Emergency, Balasaheb Thackeray was the supporter of that Emergency,” he wrote Raut in his weekly column Rokthok, published in Sena mouthpiece, Saamana.

”Indira Gandhi had shown the courage to impose Emergency in the country. At that moment, Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray had expressed open support to it,” he asserted

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Justifying the imposition of the Emergency in view of the possible internal and external threats, Raut said, “The BJP is raking up the Emergency issue which was imposed 50 years ago. It is not able to forget the Emergency which reveals its weak mindset. On June 25, 1975, an appeal was made to the Armed Forces to stage a rebellion…This was the start of an attempt to create disturbance in the country. The Opposition leaders were openly exhorting the police to not follow the government directives. They were instigating a mutiny against the country. There was a possibility of our enemy countries taking advantage of the situation. And that is why Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in the country.”

Last week Raut had said that MPs fearlessly told the Prime Minister that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) were his strong weapons to terrorise his opponents. ”The MPs said if ED and CBI were not there, the PM would become the frightened head of an organisation,” he said.

Raut said when Trinamool Congress’ Mohau Mitra of West Bengal stood up to speak in Parliament, the prime minister excused himself from the House. ”Mitra sought to tell the Prime Minister that he held two rallies in her constituency, yet she won…She said the PM should listen to her speech. But the PM had no courage to listen to her speech,” the MP mentioned.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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