The Rediff Special

'After Mrs Gandhi has used you she will spit you out like a sucked orange'

The President in the meantime was holding consultations with constitutional experts and legal luminaries including Messrs Daftary, Shakdar, Nani Palkhivala, a few professors in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the attorney general and the like and even looked into the famous works on parliamentary executive system and also the recorded events in British parliamentary history.

At this juncture, Chandra Shekhar, who had confabulations with Morarji, allegedly announced that he would contest the leadership of the Janata parliamentary wing in case Desai resigned. Any sensible person with a modicum of commonsense and political sense could easily discern the motives behind their consultations held in camera especially those of Morarji Desai and perhaps Chandra Shekhar.

One could hardly escape the inference that they were bent upon preventing Jagjivan Ram from becoming the leader of the Janata Parliamentary Party. It was perhaps too late when they sponsored him. This absolutely selfish act on their part drove the last nail as it were, on the coffin of the Janata Party. Even Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan could not forge unity in the ranks of the Janata Party which Indira Gandhi dubbed in derision "a rag-tag party and a patchwork quilt"; a hotch-potch combination of splinter groups with no common programme.

The President summoned both Morarji Desai and Charan Singh to Rashtrapati Bhavan and asked them to submit their lists of supporters within 24 hours. But Morarji Desai seemed to have pleaded with the President for extension of time by 48 hours, to which the President did not commit himself in any way either orally or in writing. He remained silent when Desai made his plea for extension of time.

The next day by 4 pm, Charan Singh sent the list of his supporters to the President through his emissaries including Raj Narain. Immediately, Morarji received a telephone message from Rashtrapati Bhavan to send his list of supporters within the stipulated period. Morarji was obviously unprepared. He argued with the President on the question of time-limit to submit the list of his supporters.

Morarji Desai asked his followers to prepare the list within 30 minutes and during that hurried preparation, he phoned for support even to Devraj Urs, a person against whom he himself had foisted charges and appointed the Grover Commission of enquiry. In that hurriedly prepared list of Morarji's supporters the President found nearly fifty names of MPs who had extended support to Charan Singh.

The next day the President summoned those fifty MPs whose names figured in both the lists of Morarji and Charan Singh. After ascertaining Indira Gandhi's views in writing that she and her group were supporting Charan Singh, the President invited Charan Singh to explore the possibilities of forming an alternative government. Then, after holding consultations with Kamalapati Tripathi, Stephen, Indira Gandhi and some others the President asked Charan Singh to form a government.

However, the President asked Charan Singh to prove his majority in the Lok Sabha as early as possible, say, in a fortnight. The Lok Sabha was summoned especially for this purpose on August 20, 1979. In the meanwhile, Morarji Desai stepped down from the leadership and Jagjivan Ram, who was elected as the leader of the Janata Parliamentary Party, tabled a no-confidence motion against the Charan Singh ministry.

Till 10.30 am on August 20, Charan Singh was kept in agonising suspense by Indira Gandhi, who finally sent a missive to him to the effect that her party extended its support to him only to the extent of his forming the government but not for running the government and as such her party had decided to withdraw its support.

In his letter dated July 16, 1979, Ram Jethmalani already warned Charan Singh about the consequences of his action. He wrote, 'After Mrs Gandhi has used you she will spit you out like a sucked orange.'

Kind courtesy: From Farm House to Rashtrapati Bhavan, by I V Chalapati Rao and P Audinarayana Reddy, Booklinks Corporation, Hyderabad, 1989.

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