Mangaluru : Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary C.T. Ravi said the Congress appeared not to have learnt its lesson from the Emergency and was trying to curb the freedom of the press again.

The Maharashtra government will meet the same fate the Congress met after the Emergency, following curbs on the media, he said, without naming Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami.

Speaking at the inauguration of the BJP’s State executive meeting here, Mr. Ravi quoted a Kannada anecdote, “Sahavasadinda Sanyasi Ketta (a hermit got spoiled with the company)”, and said that the Maharashtra coalition partner Shiv Sena too would meet the same end for joining hands in curbing the freedom of the press.

The Shiv Sena, Mr. Ravi claimed, has been treading a path going against the policies followed by the party’s founder, Bal Thackeray. “Reopening a closed case only for the sake of harassing the media will not go down well,” he said.

Lashing out at the Congress, Mr. Ravi said following Independence, the party had changed the definition of democracy, from “of the people, by the people, and for the people” to “of the family, by the family, and for the family”. That party has indulged in dividing people on the lines of religion and caste just to stay in power, Mr. Ravi alleged.

On the other hand, the BJP, he claimed, had “reversed the practise” and brought in the “true spirit of democracy” to the country’s polity. Mr. Ravi, who is in charge of party affairs in the south, said the BJP would utilise its strength in Karnataka to penetrate the other southern States.