Vice President Dhankar Faints While Attending Nainital University Programme
Nainital:
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar fainted on Wednesday while attending the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Kumaon University here.
As the Vice President stepped down from the dais after delivering his speech, he approached his former parliamentary colleague, Mahendra Singh Pal, who was seated in the audience.
Pal, an advocate in the High Court of Uttarakhand, served as a Lok Sabha MP in 1989 when Jagdeep Dhankhar was also an MP from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.
Both men appeared to become emotional upon seeing each other.
After talking to each other for a while, Dhankar embraced Pal and appeared to pass out on his shoulders.
Noticing something was wrong, the medical team accompanying the Vice President quickly responded and brought him back to consciousness.
Jagdeep Dhankhar soon recovered and proceeded to the Raj Bhawan, where he would spend the night.
The Vice President began his three-day visit to Nainital on Wednesday.
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The Print
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50 yrs since Emergency, Congress's journey from justification to admission of ‘mistake'
'When elections were held (in 1980), she returned to power. People were in no mood to rake up the past. The Congress came back with a nearly two-thirds majority,' Kharge told a press conference, echoing a line many party leaders have taken over the years when confronted with the Emergency's uncomfortable legacy. 'They (BJP) put her in the dock over the Emergency, but she acknowledged it was a mistake and also apologised,' Kharge said Wednesday, noting that the former prime minister even voted in favour of the 44th Amendment, which reversed many constitutional changes introduced during the Emergency. New Delhi: On the 50th anniversary of the Emergency declaration, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that Indira Gandhi had admitted the imposition of the Emergency was a 'mistake' for which she had apologised to the people. However, flipping through the pages of history reveals a more nuanced picture. Until Rahul Gandhi's unequivocal admission in 2021 that the Emergency was a mistake, no Congress leader had explicitly apologised for its imposition without qualifiers. Kharge's claim that Indira Gandhi had called it a mistake appears to be a reference to her January 1978 'apology'—which addressed the 'excesses' committed during the 21-month period, but not the act of imposing it itself. In a 1978 interview to Jonathan Dimbleby of UK-based Thames Television, Indira had, in fact, defended her decision, saying it was needed as her political rivals 'were destroying democracy.' 'Because they felt they could not win an election, they said we must take the battle to the streets. Morarji Desai is on record in an interview having said 'we are going to surround the PM house, the parliament, and we will see that no business is done'. … Another member of the opposition, now a minister, said if we cannot win by the ballot we will win by the bullet…India would not have survived. It was as serious as a war period,' Indira said. Her son Rajiv Gandhi, who took over as the prime minister following her assassination in 1984, also employed similar arguments in defending her move when the issue came up in the Lok Sabha on 23 July, 1985. That day, Rajiv, who had a brute majority of 414 seats in the Lok Sabha, found himself cornered in Parliament, with opposition leaders pressing for an adjournment motion to discuss the 'possibility of a proclamation' of a fresh Emergency in the country. Despite Speaker Balram Jakhar rejecting the demand, stating there was no basis for it, socialist leader Madhu Dandavate, along with CPI leader Indrajit Gupta and a few other opposition MPs, compelled Rajiv to intervene. Dandavate argued that certain remarks made by the Prime Minister at a press conference earlier that month had 'created apprehensions about the possibility of a proclamation of Emergency in the country.' With Jakhar struggling to restore order in the House, Rajiv stood up. 'I will answer that,' he said. His subsequent remarks—recorded in the official Parliament proceedings—are telling. 'I was asked a very specific question. One, whether I thought the Emergency when it was proclaimed in 1975 was correct? I said 'yes', I think it is correct and I stand by that statement,' Rajiv said. 'The second part of the question I was asked was 'if conditions similar to those in 1975 were to repeat themselves would I do the same thing?' My answer was that it was highly unlikely that any given set of conditions can repeat themselves. I said that 'if conditions do occur that require an emergency to be proclaimed, I will not hesitate to proclaim an Emergency',' he said. He argued that there was no bigger danger in any country than a 'vacillating government'. 'And that was the type of government we had when you were sitting on this side. That is why you are afraid to talk about the Emergency. 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How jail term during Emergency shaped leaders of today's BJP What Pranab, Manmohan & Rahul said In his 2014 book, 'The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years', former president and the late Congress stalwart, Pranab Mukherjee, claimed that Emergency brought 'discipline in public life', a growing economy, controlled inflation, a reversed trade deficit for the first time, enhanced developmental expenditure and a crackdown on tax evasion and smuggling but 'it was perhaps an avoidable event'. 'Suspension of fundamental rights and political activity, including trade union activity, large scale arrests of political leaders and activists, press censorship, and extending the life of legislatures by not conducting elections were some instances of Emergency adversely affecting the interests of the people. The Congress and Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this misadventure,' wrote Mukherjee. 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With an ever-increasing number of migrants travelling from poorer to richer areas in search of employment, the number of those effectively disenfranchised will only increase, unless mechanisms are put in place to facilitate voting by migrants. In an attempt to solve the issue, public discussions have been held. The Election Commission of India (ECI) put forth a concrete proposal in 2024. But no single mechanism for voting for migrants has been implemented. Different kinds of policies and mechanisms are needed to enable voting for different kinds of migrants (intra and inter-State migrants). Intra-State migrants (around 85% of migrants) working in the informal sector could be encouraged to travel relatively shorter distances to vote in their original place of residence. However, they would need a measure of support from the government. Stricter enforcement of the statutory holiday on polling day would ensure that these workers are able to travel to vote without loss of wages. 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While this move may face significant opposition from longer-term residents of the area, it would empower one of the most vulnerable sections of the population. Separately, as a significant number of migrant populations across the country are women who migrate after marriage, voting drives could also be carried out to enrol these women on the voter lists of their new place of residence. A mixed approach Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages. Enabling voting by migrants is a complex task and is made more complex by the heterogeneity of migrants. Therefore, an approach that uses all these options will enable a significant share of both inter- and intra-State salaried and casual migrants to exercise their right to vote.
