‘Modi government being run in an authoritarian manner’.

Forty years after it had supported the > Emergency, the Communist Party of India (CPI) leadership has said it was a political mistake.

While >CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy said the party had failed to understand political reality by supporting the Emergency, veteran party leader Gurudas Dasgupta said it was “a great political mistake.”

“We committed a mistake. We had thought that the right wing reactionary forces will be defeated through the Emergency but it emerged as a dictatorship,” Mr. Reddy told The Hindu.

The Emergency has no parallel in the history of independent India and some leaders in the party had realised this then itself, Mr. Dasgupta said. “Even during the days of the Emergency when even minor political activity was not allowed, we had opposed it by organising programmes.”

It was after the setback to Indira Gandhi in the 1977 polls, that the CPI at its Bhatinda Party Congress distanced itself from the Congress. In West Bengal when the Left Front government was formed in 1977 the CPI was not part of it. The party joined the Front later.

Both Mr. Reddy and Mr. Dasgupta, however, expressed concerns over the Narendra Modi government ‘being run in an authoritarian manner.’

The CPI general secretary said the recent concerns expressed by BJP leader L.K. Advani could not be dismissed lightly. “The dictatorial tendencies of the present government are evident from the fact that even the Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues are not free to voice their views,” Mr. Reddy said.

Mr. Dasgupta said there were ominous signs. But he rejected the idea that there could be another imposition of Emergency.

“The nation has learnt its lessons and the roots of democracy run deep. It won’t be easy for anyone to do it again, however, authoritarian the government of the day be.”