New Delhi, Dec 2 (IANS) A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP stunned the Rajya Sabha Wednesday when he lavished praise on the defunct and much-reviled Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) that had helped restore order during the 1975-77 Emergency, and said “something like this is needed now”.
“MISA worked very well during the Emergency. There should be an act like this. Something like this is needed now,” the BJP’s Rama Jois said while participating in a short duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the internal security situation in the country.

MISA, promulgated in 1971, had been widely panned for the manner in which then prime minister Indira Gandhi had misused it to jail her political opponents during the Emergency. Among those incarcerated were BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.

The Janata Party that came to power after the 1977 general elections had repealed the law.

Rama Jois was the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court - two states where MISA was misused most during the Emergency.