Then RSS chief pledged support and wrote to Indira Gandhi for release during Emergency: Yechury hits back at Jaitley

CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury today alleged that the then RSS chief's letters pledging support to Indira Gandhi and pleading for release during the Emergency were recorded in history, in a full-frontal attack on Union Minister Arun Jaitley for his remarks that the Left party was not part of active struggle against the move.

In his tweets, Yechury has lashed out at Jaitley reminding him that though the BJP "distorts history" but "heroic sacrifice" of the CPI(M) workers during the Emergency are well documented.

"Distorting history is their occupation. History has recorded CPI(M) martyrs and heroic sacrifices in this struggle for the restoration of Democracy. History also records two servile letters of the RSS chief pledging support to Indira Gandhi's 20 point programme & pleading release (sic)," the CPI(M) leader tweeted.

Jaitley yesterday criticised the Left parties in his tweets, saying whereas the CPI was an unashamed supporter of the Emergency, the CPI(M) though theoretically opposed the move did not actively participated in the struggle against the then Congress government's move.

The Left leader also reminded Jaitley that both of them were part of that generation of students who fought the Emergency and "restored democracy" in the country.

"I continue that fight against the institutionalised Emergency of this RSS/BJP government," he emphasised.

The Emergency was in force between 1975 and 1977 when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister.

Jaitley in the same context had also written that the lesson from the Emergency was that "if you curb free speech and allow only propaganda, you become the first victim of propaganda because you start believing that your own propaganda is the truth and the full truth".