Indira loyalist holds Ray responsible for Emergency

Remembering emergency days, PM Modi tweeted, “We mark 40 years of one of India’s darkest periods- the Emergency, when the then political leadership trampled over our democracy.”
Arrest list of opposition leaders were prepared days before declaration
Dhawan said that preparations to arrest leaders of opposition parties began a couple of days before the Emergency was declared on 25 June.The chief ministers were asked to prepare a list of ministers to be arrested from RSS and others, and the same was happening in Delhi, Dhawan added. Orders to make arrests under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) were also issued in Delhi.”The Emergency was well planned,” Dhawan said.

Sanjay Gandhi did many behind his mother’s back
Sanjay was pampered by Congress ministers, including Bansi Lal , who made him believe that he had more followers than Indira. Congress ministers started taking orders from him, which encouraged him to take power in his own hands, Dhawan revealed.But, Indira was unaware of the situation. She had little clue about how Sanjay was exercising his power. She also had no idea about the mass sterilisation and slum clearance campaigns that he was carrying out.His wife Maneka, who is now with the BJP, was aware of everything Sanjay was doing during the Emergency. She often accompanied Sanjay to the campaigns.”Maneka) should share Sanjay guilt,” Dhawan said.

40 years after its proclamation by then prime minister Indira Gandhi, the spectres of that fateful period still haunts us. Many events of that time were revisited in a recent television interview of RK Dhawan, personal secretary and confidant of Indira Gandhi.
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi seemed visibly relieved when she was told that she had lost the 1977 General Election, her former aide R.K. Dhawan has said.
Dhawan, who in June 1975 was Indira Gandhi’s trusted private secretary, also told a leading TV channel from India that the person who should be blamed for the Emergency rule is then West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray.
In his first and so far only comprehensive TV interview on the Emergency, Dhawan has revealed the full inside story of that turbulent period when thousands of opposition leaders and activists were jailed and democratic rights were curbed.
Dhawan said that Indira Gandhi called the 1977 Lok Sabha election after being told by the Intelligence Bureau that she would win up to 340 seats in the Lok Sabha. Her principal secretary PN Dhar gave her the report.
Cabinet minister Jagjivan Ram’s break with Indira Gandhi came as a surprise. It made her realize the election campaign would be difficult but she didn’t think she would lose.
Dhawan said it was he who broke the news to Indira Gandhi that she — and the Congress party — had lost the 1977 election.
She was then having dinner. According to Dhawan, relief broke out over her face and she said she would now have time for herself and the family.