India, June 25 -- June 25 marks 50 years of the imposition of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi in India. The Emergency is one of the greatest ironies of politics in India. It was imposed to secure Indira Gandhi's hold on power but ended up catalysing (short-lived) opposition unity which would lead to the Congress losing power for the first time in independent India. In other words, the Congress's humiliating loss in the 1977 elections was more a result of opposition unity than Congress's loss of popular support among voters.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Hindustan Times....