December 15, 2024 01:57 (IST)
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Indira Gandhi wasn't aware of emergency provision: Pranab
New Delhi, Dec 11 (IBNS): President Pranab Mukherjee in his new book, released online on Thursday on his 79th birthday, wrote former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was not aware of the emergency provision in the Constitution and acted on advice from Congress leader Siddharth Shankar Ray when she imposed the Emergency of 1975-77.
"Indira asked SS Ray to go with her to the President, the president asked Shri Ray as to the exact words of the constitution and then told the PM to make her recommendation," Mukherjee wrote in his book 'Dramatic Decade, The Indira Gandhi Years'.
Mukherjee claims Siddharth Shankar Ray was a leader who took a "sharp about turn" before the Shah Commission set up to look into the Emergency's excesses and pinned the blame on Indira Gandhi.
"Ray ran into Indira draped in a crimson sari that day in the commission hall. He remarked: 'You look pretty today.' Indira snapped back, 'despite your efforts,'" he wrote.
He stated that the Emergency an "avoidable event".
"Discipline in public life, a growing economy, controlled inflation, reversed trade deficit, enhanced spending on development and a crackdown on tax evasion and smuggling," he wrote.
His book, which is considered as an insider's account on some of the most game-changing events in Indian politics.
It will be sold online for 21 days before it hits the bookstores.
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