We investigate emergent universe model using recent observational data of the background as well as the growth tests. The flat emergent universe model obtained by Mukherjee et al. is permitted with a non-linear equation of state (in short, EoS) ( $p=A\rho -B \rho^{\frac{1}{2}}$ ), where $A$ and $B$ are constants (here in our analysis $A=0$ is considered). We carried out analysis considering the Wang–Steinhardt ansatz for growth index ( $\gamma $ ) and growth function ( $f$ defined as $f=\varOmega_{m}^{\gamma } (a)$ ). The best-fit values of the EoS and growth parameters are determined making use of $chi$ -square minimization technique. Here we specifically determined the best-fit value and the range of value of the present matter density ( $\varOmega _{m}$ ) and Hubble parameter ( $H_{0}$ ). The best-fit values of the EoS parameters are used to study the evolution of the growth function $f$ , growth index $\gamma $ , state parameter $\omega $ and deceleration parameter ( $q$ ) for different red shift parameter $z$ . The late accelerating phase of the universe in the EU model is accommodated satisfactorily.