Jaya Prakash Narayan’s birth anniversary on October 11 will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi felicitating a dozen individuals who had gone to jail during the Emergency of 1975-77 .
BJP veteran L.K. Advani and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal will be present on the occasion.
While many of the names among the “defenders of democracy” are from the RSS-BJP stable, the list takes care of diversity by honouring those who did not have an RSS or Jana Sangh background.
O.P. Kohli (Gujarat), B.D. Tandon (Chhattisgarh), Vajubhai Vala (Karnataka) and Kalyan Singh (Rajasthan) are governors right now and have an RSS/Jana Sangh background.
BJP leaders Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Subramanian Swamy and Jayawantiben Mehta will also be felicitated. Journalists Virendra Kapoor, Ram Bahadur Rai (formerly with RSS’ student affiliate ABVP) and Kotamraju Vikram Rao are on the list.
Bhai Mahavir, who was a member of BJP’s predecessor Jana Sangh, and ED Mahajan of the RSS are also on the list.
Among those who have never been with the Jana Sangh or the RSS is Nationalist Congress Party leader DP Tripathi, who was a leftist student leader in the Emergency days.
