From HT Archives: Morarji Desai stepsdown as PM amid Janata Party crisis
Prime Minister Morarji Desai resigned after the strength of the Janata Party in the Lok Sabha dropped, but was asked to continue until a successor was found. Several ministers resigned and Chavan rejected Desai's request for support. Desai ultimately gave in to the advice of his colleagues and submitted his resignation to the President. The Janata Party worked out a plan to ensure continuity of a Janata or Janata-led government.
With the strength of the Janata Party in the Lok Sabha depleting overnight from 223 to a little over 200 in a House of 539 on July 15, 1979, Prime Minister Morarji Desai decided to step down and tendered his resignation to the President N Sanjiva Reddy.
Sanjiva Reddy accepted the resignation but requested Desai to continue in office till a successor emerged.
Till noon, Desai was unwilling to accept the advice tendered by several of his Cabinet colleagues that he should step down. A meeting of the parliamentary board to review the situation was to have been held in the morning but it was decided that before it was convened the deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram should have a final word with Desai. During their talks, Desai reportedly held the view that he would rather face the no-confidence motion than resign in anticipation of its being carried.
This was conveyed by Ram to his Cabinet colleagues. Thereupon, industry minister George Fernandes and tourism minister Purushottam Lal Kaushik forwarded the resignation to Desai and announced their decision to resign from the Janata parliamentary party and asked the Speaker to make separate seating arrangements for them in the Lok Sabha.
Another resignation from the government was that of the minister of state for agriculture, Bhanu Pratap Singh. He also forwarded his resignation about the same time as Fernandes.
After receiving their resignations, Desai reportedly sounded the leader of the Opposition, YB Chavan, whether he would be willing to support his government as sustained by the Janata Party “as it stood”. Chavan turned it down.
Desai’s conversation with Chavan was disclosed at a news conference by Congress president Swaran Singh who also said the members of the Congress parliamentary board had endorsed Chavan’s stand.
In forcing Desal to step down from office, the last straw was the letter written by deputy PM to him in which he listed the failures of the government.
Jagjivan Ram followed this up by meeting Desai where he informed Desai that he also would be left with no option but to resign if Desai did not respond to the realities of the situation and made way for a new leader.
What made Desai ultimately give in to the advice of his colleagues was a meeting he had with information minister LK Advani. Earlier, a supporter of Desai, Satyendra Narain Sinha, Bihar Janata Party chief, had evolved a formula under which the Janata Party could make the no confidence motion infructuous and, at the same time gain some precious time to outmaneuver its opponents.
A meeting of the parliamentary board was summoned.
George Fernandes having resigned and deputy prime minister Charan Singh still maintaining that he was suffering from toothache, the participants were Desai, party president Chandra Shekhar, deputy PM Jagjivan Ram, external affairs minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the party general secretaries.
Desai shared his misgivings with some close friends that it was nothing short of a “blackmail” the way certain members of the government had behaved and were threatening to behave.
Yet, he could see the options were very limited, to step down or be voted out on the floor of the House. He agreed to adopt the first course.
Desai had consultations with Cabinet ministers, chief ministers, and other senior leaders. The decision was that he would submit his resignation to the President.
Later, doubts were raised that announcement on radio/TV before taking the Lok Sabha into confidence while it was in session might amount to violation of Parliamentary convention and misuse of the media. The proposal was, therefore, given up.
According to the modality worked out for a smooth changeover to ensure continuance of a Janata or Janata-led government, Desai’s resignation does not take away from him the right to be invited again by the President for the formation of a new ministry.
To get over the controversial issue of “dual membership” so that the deserters could be brought back, the Janata leadership has drafted a declaration that they would be totally loyal to the Janata Party and have faith in secularism, socialism and democracy.
