'Emergency' was a mistake, admits Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi. File pic

Speaking about the Emergency during a conversation with economist Kaushik Basu from the Cornell University in the US, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that it was a "mistake". "I think that (Emergency) was a mistake. Absolutely, that was a mistake. And my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) said as much," Rahul Gandhi told Bose, who had served as the chief economic advisor to India.

While attacking the current dispensation saying that "there is a fundamental difference between what happened during the Emergency, which 'was wrong', and what is happening in the country now", Rahul Gandhi said the Congress, at no point, attempted to capture India's constitutional framework. "Our design does not allow us that. Even if we want to do it, we can't," he said.

"The RSS is doing something fundamentally different. They are filling institutions with their people. Even if we defeat the BJP in the elections, we are not going to get rid of their people in the institutional structure," Rahul Gandhi said.

The former Congress President went on to say that people sitting in constitutional posts do not perform their duties, as he attacked Kiran Bedi, the former LG of Puducherry, and Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla. "MPs from Manipur say their Governor doesn't do her job, thinking that she holds an ideological post, not the constitutional one, while the former Puducherry Lt. Governor openly subverted the democratic process by not allowing bills to pass as she belonged to the RSS," he said.

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