Ravi Shankar Prasad Recalls Horrific Experience of Being Beaten Up During Emergency Era

New Delhi: Senior BJP MP and former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recalled the horrors of the Emergency on the floor of the Lok Sabha House on Saturday.

Attacking the Congress over the imposition of the Emergency in the country, Shankar said lakhs of people were sent to jail and opposition leaders targeted.

Recalling the horror, Shankar said, "We are thrashed with lathis...I was very thin then. Late Sushil Modi and I were thrashed so brutally that even now when I recall it, it pains me."

He said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reached here after facing lathis (sticks) and bullets during the Emergency, unlike those who represent a family.

Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha on 75 years after the Constitution's adoption, Prasad said the framers of the Constitution knew that the Indian heritage is secular in nature as mentioned in the 'Rigveda.'

He said the original Constitution had pictures of Lord Ram, Lord Hanuman and Mughal emperor Akbar, but not of Babar and Aurangzeb.

He said in a hypothetical situation, if the Constitution was framed today, the opposition would have protested the insertion of such pictures in it.

Prasad also slammed the Congress for failing to recognise the contribution of leaders, such as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He claimed that none of the Congress leaders took their names in their speeches. (with PTI inputs)