In the run-up to the 2004 parliamentary election, Congress President Sonia Gandhi had told The SundayExpress Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk programme that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had thought that Emergency was a “mistake”. “Well, there is no way we can say that the Emergency was right,” she had said.

Congress leaders believed that Arjun’s remarks might be “his way” of conveying “like-mindedness” on the Emergency to Sonia.

Senior Congress leaders vehemently contested the HRD Minister’s claims about his role during the Emergency. A senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh said Arjun Singh was Education Minister in PC Sethi Government when the Emergency was imposed.

“Arjun Singh was all praise for the Emergency then. Check out the records, the local press clippings, he was eulogising 20 Point Programme. But when SC Shukla replaced PC Sethi as Chief Minister in December 1975, if I remember it right, he dropped Arjun Singh from the Cabinet. I don’t know if Singh started opposing the Emergency after being dropped. Even if he had, it had to be at the local level. Nothing was heard at the national level. Anyway, Singh won the Assembly election post-Emergency, even though most stalwarts had lost,” said the senior Congressman.

A senior Congress leader, who was in Rajya Sabha then, said, “Arjun Singh was too insignificant a leader then to approach Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and oppose the Emergency. At least, I don’t remember it.”