Congress leader Shashi Tharoor hit out at the Narendra Modi-led Union government claiming that Delhi witnessed ‘war-like deployment’ during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest on Satuday. Tharoor, a parliamentarian, said GenZ deserved better than an ‘undeclared’ Emergency.
Tharoor also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2015 post about the and said, “Thanks for teaching today’s youngsters many of the same lessons, Modiji!”
In the June 2015 post, PM Modi had said how personally, the Emergency brought back many memories.” As youngsters, we learnt a lot during the anti-Emergency movement,” he had said.
In another post, Tharoor wrote, “As I said this morning, our GenZ deserves better than an undeclared EmerGenZ,”
The Emergency in India was a 21 month period from 1975 to 1977 when prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency across India by citing internal and external threats to the country. and other top leaders of the BJP have often used Emergency to target the Congress party.
June 25, 2025, marked the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the 1975 Emergency. The Modi government marks the day as ‘’ to remember the victims and the suspension of constitutional rights during the 21-month Emergency period.
By combining ‘Emergency’ with ‘Gen Z’, Tharoor invoked the authoritarian associations of the 1975–77 Emergency while suggesting that young Indians are confronting restrictions on their political expression today.
Delhi Police on Saturday detained more than 4,000 protesters and the leaders (CJP) as security forces locked down parts of the capital to thwart a rally demanding the resignation of India’s election chief.
Thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the city, mobile internet services were suspended in the central business district and dozens of metro stations and markets were shut as authorities moved to stop a demonstration organised by the CJP-led movement.
The protest was aimed at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of voter lists that critics say disproportionately benefits Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The movement had planned to gather thousands of people at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, but the area was sealed off by security forces before the demonstration began.
In an earlier post, Tharoor said the government should provide answers, not lathis; expression, not repression.
Tharoor, who was in Berlin this week, said he returned to the national capital after 2 am and has rarely seen anything like what Delhi is witnessing now.
“Checkpoints every few hundred metres, concrete barriers and spike strips laid across our roads, a “war-like” deployment of , 250 trains cancelled and 45 metro stations closed, and reports of young people being detained from their own homes and the streets in and around Delhi — all to prevent citizens from peacefully raising questions about the integrity of our elections,” he said on X.
“Most regressive (as well as repressive) is the suspension of the internet in the heart of the national capital,” the former Union minister said.
Freedom of movement stands completely shackled, he added.
Jantar Mantar was designated precisely so that citizens could voice dissent in the centre of Delhi, and today even the roads leading to it have been declared out of bounds, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.
“One is entitled to ask where this extraordinary manpower and urgency disappear when women in our capital need protection,” Tharoor said.
A government confident in the fairness of its elections would welcome questions about them, whereas one that turns its capital into a fortress to avoid them only deepens the very suspicions it seeks to suppress, he said.
“The government should provide answers, not lathis; expression, not repression,” Tharoor asserted.
Barricades will do nothing to restore faith in the , and the sooner it answers the public’s questions, the sooner calm will be restored, he said.
“The strength of a democracy is measured by how it treats those who question its working, and by that measure, what we have seen today is utterly shameful and unconscionable,” Tharoor said.
The had prompted heightened security measures in the national capital, with police maintaining a strict vigil to prevent any breach of peace.
Delhi Police has denied permission to the CJP to hold its proposed demonstration at Jantar Mantar, citing security considerations and procedural requirements.
(With agency inputs)
