The viral picture of Indira Gandhi was taken when she sat in protest in her lawn after her defeat in the 1977 elections.
The Mumbai: Congress held a ‘satyagraha’ on Tuesday and protested against the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning of party leader Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald money laundering case, relating to alleged financial irregularities at Congress-sponsored Young Indian Private Limited, which the newspaper said the National Herald owned. The ED recorded Sonia Gandhi’s statement on the second day of his interrogation in the case for about 2.5 hours.
Meanwhile, Congress held a nationwide protest against the misuse of central investigative agencies.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was arrested along with several party leaders by Delhi police in Vijay Chowk during the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan as they protested.
During the protest, Rahul Gandhi sat down on the street, the picture of which went viral on Twitter. The picture shows Rahul Gandhi, masked, sitting on the street being surrounded by security forces while the leader is looking up at the policemen. Shortly after, the Congress party tweeted another picture of Rahul Gandhi and his grandmother Indira Gandhi seemingly drawing a comparison between the two.
In the picture, like Rahul Gandhi, Indira Gandhi can be seen sitting on the ground while being surrounded by people. Congress tweeted this picture with Hindi couplets and a message: “History is Repeating”.
The tweet went viral with the netizens sharing and retweeting it. The tweet has received 5793 likes yet and the numbers are increasing.
जंजीर बढ़ा कर साध मुझे,
हाँ, हाँ दुर्योधन! बाँध मुझे।बाँधने मुझे तो आया है,
जंजीर बड़ी क्या लाया है?इतिहास दोहरा रहा है…#SatyagrahaWithSoniaGandhi pic.twitter.com/wroc7cLtk9
— Congress (@INCIndia) July 26, 2022
But do you know the story behind the viral picture of Indira Gandhi?
While both the pictures look similar, Indira Gandhi’s picture was taken when she sat in protest in her lawn after her defeat in the 1977 elections.
The story behind Indira Gandhi’s picture:
In 1977 the then PM Indira Gandhi suddenly called off a state of Emergency( which she herself has imposed in 1975 in the nation) and called for a fresh Lok Sabha polls. According to some reports, even her own party members were not aware of her plans to revoke the emergency. She announced the elections on All India Radio on January 18, 1977. Her son Sanjay Gandhi who was also a power center also came to know about it only from the radio broadcast, and reportedly, he had an angry showdown with her.
It is also believed that the Intelligence Bureau told her that she would win 330 seats holding on to the power again. She too misinterpreted the mood of the nation and seemed very confident regarding her popularity being intact even though she had effectively suspended several basic Constitutional rights of Indian citizens.
In the meantime, the opposition parties came together against Ms Gandhi and formed an alliance called the Janata party which focused on issues related to the excesses of the emergency. The Opposition leaders who were detained during the Emergency came together on a common anti-Congress platform.
As per reports, she even spoke to P.N.Dhar and said even though the IB told her that she has 330 seats in hand she too wanted to test herself and have a fair election even if she were to lose. On February 2, 1977, when Jagjivan Ram and Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna deserted Indira, she doubted herself about getting seats from UP and Bihar.
The Lok Sabha elections, held from March 16-20, ended up being a political revolt and an earthquake for Congress. Indira Gandhi lost her own seat. For the first time in modern Indian history, the people had expressed a lack of confidence in the Grand Old Party. The Janata Party and its allies won 345 seats and finally, Morarji Desai was sworn in as the PM on March 24.
The same year, Indira Gandhi was arrested in relation to a corruption case, as per reports.
Yet, the government didn’t last for long and Indira Gandhi returned to power a few years later.
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