The Congress on Friday described the Centre’s move to declare June 25 as “Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas”, as yet another “headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

June 25 was when the Emergency was declared in 1975. The Centre on Friday said that “Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas”, meaning a day to remember the “murder of the Constitution”, will be observed annually to pay tribute to those who suffered the abuse of power during the period.

In a social media post, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that on June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister at the time, had “strangled the soul of Indian democracy by imposing Emergency” by “showing her dictatorial mindset”.

Soon after the announcement, the Congress said that the move was merely a headline-grabbing exercise by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who “had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years”.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X that in this year’s Lok Sabha election, the people of the country handed Modi “a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat”. He remarked that June 4, the day of the election, result, would go down in history as “Modi Mukt Diwas”.

“This is a non-biological PM who has subjected the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to systematic assault,” he added. “This is a non-biological PM whose ideological parivar had rejected the Constitution of India in November 1949 on the grounds that it did not derive inspiration from Manusmriti.”

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge responded to the Centre’s move by saying that in the last ten years, the NDA government has celebrated “Constitution Murder Day” every day.

He added that BJP’s ideological parent Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh never accepted the Constitution.

“Is it not true that RSS mouthpiece Organiser had written in its editorial in its November 30, 1949 issue that - ‘The worst thing about this new Constitution of India is that there is nothing Indian in it’ and here did RSS not clearly stand against the main architect of the Indian Constitution i.e. Baba Saheb Dr Ambedkar ji and supported Manusmriti instead?”

The Manusmriti is a Hindu legal text authored by a medieval ascetic named Manu. It has been widely criticised for its gender and caste-based provisions.