The calm and order observed in the Lok Sabha this morning soon turned into chaos after the newly elected Speaker Om Birla remembered the “dark days of Emergency” and called for 2-minute silence.

Addressing the House, Birla, a three-time MP, who was re-elected by a voice vote, asked all members to rise and observe two minutes’ silence to mark the 50th anniversary of the “dark days of Emergency”. The Speaker read out a resolution condemning the Emergency and the then-government headed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This triggered a massive uproar in the Opposition benches and the House was adjourned amid slogans.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and said it was a wonderful gesture to stand in silence in honour of all those who suffered during those days.

“I am glad that the Speaker strongly condemned the Emergency, highlighted the excesses committed during that time and also mentioned the manner in which democracy was strangled. It was also a wonderful gesture to stand in silence in honour of all those who suffered during those days,” the prime minister said in a tweet.

Responding to the Speaker’s request, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said it is “unfortunate” that the Speaker ended up undermining the spirit of consensus by a “divisive” statement.

“This was not necessary. It was 49 years ago. If you have to go to such lengths on a day on which the message was to be one of cooperation and consensus, that’s unfortunate,” he said.

During the first Parliament session following the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi’s Congress government on June 25, 1975.

“Today is a day to pay homage to all those great men and women who resisted the Emergency. The #DarkDaysOfEmergency remind us of how the Congress Party subverted basic freedoms and trampled over the Constitution of India which every Indian respects greatly,” the Prime Minister posted on X on Tuesday.

“Just to cling on to power, the then Congress Government disregarded every democratic principle and made the nation into a jail. Any person who disagreed with the Congress was tortured and harassed. Socially regressive policies were unleashed to target the weakest sections.

“Those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess their love for our Constitution. These are the same people who have imposed Article 356 on innumerable occasions, got a Bill to destroy press freedom, destroyed federalism and violated every aspect of the Constitution,” he said.

Attacking the Congress, the main opposition party in the Parliament, PM Modi said that the “mindset which led to the imposition of the Emergency is very much alive among the same Party which imposed it”. “They hide their disdain for the Constitution through their tokenism, but the people of India have seen through their antics and that is why they have rejected them time and again,” he said.

The Prime Minister laid the groundwork for the offensive on Monday during his media address at the start of the new session when he said that June 25 marks 50 years of a dark chapter in Indian democracy.

“The new generation will not forget how the Indian Constitution was scrapped, the country turned into a jail and democracy captured. In this 50th anniversary, the country will take a pledge that never again will it happen,” he said yesterday.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge pointed out that while the Prime Minister talks about the 50-year-old Emergency, he has conveniently forgotten the “undeclared Emergency of the last 10 years”.