Senior BJP leader L K Advani alleged that the Congress is making a 'ridiculous attempt' to make Sanjay Gandhi a 'scapegoat' for all the wrongs during the Emergency and held the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi responsible for it. Referring to a mention on Sanjay in "Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation",a book released recently to commemorate 125 years of existence of the party,Advani wrote on his blog,"The paragraph from the book is a ridiculous attempt to make Sanjay Gandhi a scapegoat for all the misdeeds the country had to suffer during the Emergency." As soon as the book was released,BJP leaders had defended Sanjay,saying he was being singled out for the excesses of the Emergency. Sanjay's widow Maneka and son Varun are BJP Mps. Another senior BJP leader Jagmohan was a close associate of Sanjay. Advani,who was in jail for several months during the Emergency,held Indira Gandhi responsible for imposing Emergency in the country. "Without consulting her Cabinet,or even her Law Minister and Home Minister,she made President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed invoke Article 352 to put democracy under indefinite suspension," he said. Advani maintained that Indira Gandhi could not bear the Allahabad High Court verdict which indicted her for electoral corruption and decided to clamp Emergency. "The Congress Party publication indicates that the Party regrets only the 'excesses' committed during the Emergency,because Sanjay promoted worthwhile causes such as slum-clearance,anti-dowry measures,and literacy,but in an arbitrary and authoritarian manner," Advani said. The former Deputy Prime Minister said whenever the executive finds anything "unpalatable" in a judicial verdict it tries to make changes by mobilising legislative support but Indira Gandhi "did not stop there". "The Congress Party has admitted that more than one lakh persons were jailed during the Emergency. The exact number was 1,10,806. Of these 34,988 were detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act whereunder no grounds were to be given to the prisoner," Advani said. He states that when all high courts rejected the government's suspension of Fundamental Rights,the government appealed to the Supreme Court. All high court judges who dissented were punished,he alleged,saying 19 were transferred.
