Friday, March 4 2005 11:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Drawing a comparison between the days of the Emergency and the dramatic political events in Jharkhand, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani yesterday (Mar 3, 2005) said that the happenings in the eastern Sate had "wounded the Constitution".

With the shadow of political developments in Jharkhand looming large on the function at New Delhi last evening, to release the Hindi translation of Nobel laureate Sir V S Naipaul's book `India: A Wounded Civilisation', Advani in his address to the gathering, said, "Sir Naipaul wrote about the wounded civilisation. What I am encountering is a wounded Constitution."

Noting that the book is set during the Emergency in 1975, Advani said, "What we did to protect the Constitution in 1975, we can again do it now. Blows have been dealt to the Constitution again and again. But we will fight the forces that are wounding the Constitution."

The BJP chief, who released the Hindi version of the book, had come to the function straight from the Rashtrapati Bhawan where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) paraded its 41 MLAs before the President.

"The five independent MLAs supporting the NDA have come to Delhi after a lot of difficulties. All attempts were made to stop them from coming here, to detain them there. It is nothing less than an exciting thriller, a saga," he said.

Lauding Naipaul, who was present on the occasion with his wife Nadira and daughter Maliha, for making Bihar, the State his forefathers belonged to, and India proud worldwide with his writings, Advani urged him to write a book on the Indian national identity.