Rajnath Singh Talks About His Prison Time During Emergency, Says 'My Mother Died, But...'

Rajnath Singh slammed Congress for implementing dictatorship during emergency, recalling how he was denied parole to attend his mother's last rites.

Hitting out at the opposition over its accusations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will impose "dictatorship" in the country if elected to power, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recalled his arrest during the Emergency imposed by the Congress led government, and stated that the party "implemented dictatorship" at that time and even denied him parole to attend his mother's last rites.

Stating how he was in jail for sixteen months and was denied parole to attend the last rites of his mother, the BJP leader said that he was "thrown into the central jail Naini for raising his voice against emergency."

Rajnath Singh, while slamming the grand old party in a counter-allegation over dictatorship said: " I was 24 years old when I was thrown into jail for raising my voice against emergency...I was kept in central jail Naini for 16 months...all the democratic provisions were stopped and they (Congress) implemented dictatorship...My mother died but still, they did not give me parole..."

At the time of his arrest, Rajnath Singh was 24 years old when the Indira Gandhi government imposed emergency in June 1975. During the JP movement against emergency, he was appointed as the convenor for Mirzapur- Sonbhadra. 

In an interview with news agency ANI in April, Rajnath Singh said: "I was jailed as we were opposing Emergency. We use to agitate. We created awareness among people, how Emergency is dangerous and reflects dictatorial tendency."

He also stated that he was newly married at the time and had returned home from work when he was told the police had come with a warrant to arrest him. "It was around midnight and was taken to jail. I was kept in solitary confinement," he said.

The Defence Minister stated that his mother had asked whether her son would be freed from jail after 12 months. However, when she was informed that Rajnath Singh's time in jail had been extended since emergency was extended by another year, she suffered a brain haemorrhage. After being hospitalised for 27 days, she passed away," Singh added.

Last week, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too, slammed the saffron party saying that the "dictatorship that is going on in our country is not accepatable. India has never seen such a period in the past 75 years, putting opposition leaders in jail."

The remarks were made by the AAP supremo as he accused the BJP of putting the opposition leaders in jail.