As President, he put signature to the order on promulgation of Emergence on 25 June 1975 – the most notable decision of the presidential term. This m… - Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

He was the president who proclaimed the two-year period of Emergency that marked such a difficult period in India's political history. This, and his subsequent death in office, marked him in public memory forever as the “Emergency President”.

He was very close to Jawaharlal Nehru. He could have joined the Central Cabinet much earlier but the Chief Minister of Assam, wanted him to work with him and resisted his going to the centre.

His initiative in introducing the Assam Agricultural Income Tax Bill, the first of its kind in India, in 1939, that levied taxes on tea garden lands in the State and his pro-labour policy in the British-owned Assam Oil Company Limited at Digboi irked the European planters and their henchman who considered that the measures of the Congress Coalition Government were radical and, therefore, constituted a danger signal tot eh interests of the British commercial community.