SOME MEMORIES OF EARLIER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
My last blog was about the Fourteenth Presidential Election. The two principal contestants in this poll, the Government’s nominee, Pranab Mukherji, and the Opposition’s nominee, Purno Sangma, have filed their nominations last week.
Tracing briefly the history of the earlier elections, I had pointed out that in all the earlier thirteen elections, the only occasion when the President was elected unopposed was in 1977.
I am reminiscing in this blog about 1977, a year that came in the wake of a 19-month Emergency, an Emergency during which the nation had experienced ruthless suppression of civil liberties not seen even during British rule.
It was also the first time since independence that the Congress Party had lost power in New Delhi. The debacle suffered by the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha election of 1977 was totally unprecedented. The voters were so angry with the Emergency excesses that in large areas of North India the Congress drew a complete blank.
In Punjab (13 seats), Haryana (9), Himachal (4), Delhi (7), Chandigarh (1), Uttar Pradesh (85) and Bihar (54), out of a total of 173 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress got not a single seat! In Madhya Pradesh (38) and Rajasthan (25) out of 63 seats, the Congress secured just 2 (one each in these two major states)
That was also the first time that we of the Jana Sangh became ministers in the Union Government. This Government was headed by Shri Morarjibhai Desai.
Around the 26th of June, 1975, the day on which the Emergency was clamped on the country, Atalji and I had gone to Bangalore to attend the meeting of a Parliamentary Committee considering the Anti-Defection law.
While thousands were arrested on 25/26 June night (and these included Loknayak Jaya Prakash Narain, Shri Morarji Desai and Shri Chandra Shekhar), Atalji, Madhu Dandavateji, Shyam Nandanji Mishra and I who had come to Bangalore for this Parliamentary Committee meeting were arrested in Bangalore on 26th June morning.
Except for two and a half months in the earlier months of the Emergency when we were transferred to Rohtak, in Haryana, we spent most of our period of detention in the Bangalore Central Jail.
As detenus in Bangalore, we had as our counsel Shri Rama Jois and Shri Santosh Hegde (both of whom later became Chief Justices of High Courts). Later on, when our formal Habeas Corpus petitions were taken up for consideration by the Karnataka High Court we had the honour to be represented by such eminent legal luminaries as Shri M.C. Chagla, Shri Shanti Bhushan and Shri Venugopal.
As a journalist working in the Organiser I had been interacting a lot with senior political leaders like Morarjibhai, Chandra Shekharji and Dr. Lohia even before coming to Parliament which was only in 1970. So, when Shri Desai chose to include me in his Cabinet and entrusted me the Information and Broadcasting portfolio, he would often discuss with me informally issues not related to my official responsibility.
I recall Morarjibhai once asking me during the very early days of his government: “Who do you think should be the new Rashtrapati of the country ?”.
When Morarji Bhai sought my opinion about who should be the country’s President, I had by then become so much at home in Bangalore that my natural response to the Prime Minister was: Why not Justice Shri K.S. Hegde, whom Smt. Gandhi had had superseded by a junior judge, Justice Shri A.N. Ray? It was Shri Ray who had been Chief Justice when the Supreme Court quashed the verdicts of numerous High Courts in favour of MISA detenus. Justice Shri H.R. Khanna was the only dissenting judge on the Supreme Court Bench.
I well remember Morarji Bhai was in agreement with my opinion. But he said that Sanjiva Reddy strongly feels that in 1969 even though he had been chosen the official candidate by the Congress Parliamentary Board, he had been cheated of Presidentship by the Congress’ own leader and Prime Minister who felt no qualms backing an independent, Shri V.V. Giri. I could see that there was justification in Morarji Bhai’s stand. It was thus that Shri Reddy became Rashtrapati and Justice Hegde became Lok Sabha Speaker.
***
Most of the earlier presidential elections took place while the parliament session was on.
I remember a meeting of all opposition party representatives convened during the Sixth Presidential Election of 1974 to discuss and decide who could be an agreed opposition candidate against Congress’ Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. I represented the Jana Sangh at this meeting. After a brief discussion, the name of Shri Tridib Chaudhuri of the Revolutionary Socialist Party was agreed upon.
I recall accompanying Tridibji to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh where the Jana Sangh had a sizable block of MLAs. Travelling together on train to these states, Tridibji said to me that while his other leftist colleagues were generally hostile to the RSS, and so to the Jana Sangh as well, he had always held RSS in high esteem. As a schoolboy, he had often seen Dr. Hedgewar come to Calcutta to attend meetings of the Anushilan Samiti, an underground revolutionary body preparing ground against the Britishers. Interactions of this kind have proved very useful to educate our party colleagues that patriotism can be a powerful bond to bring together even ideologically disparate elements.
The Seventh Election was that of 1977 in which because of its post-Emergency demoralization the Congress did not even put up a candidate, so that Sanjiva Reddy was elected unopposed.
The approach Jana Sangh adopted when deciding on an agreed opposition candidate for President in 1974 was repeated in 1982 as well.
At the preliminary meeting of opposition party representatives it was suggested: let us think of a senior parliamentarian who may be put up against Congress Party’s Giani Zail Singh. When some one mentioned Shri Hiren Mookerji, I was the first to endorse it immediately.
It had always been my view as an occasional visitor to the press gallery of Parliament that the two most outstanding orators in the First Lok Sabha (1952-1957) were the two Mukherjis – Syama Prasad and Hiren. Both respected each other, I knew.
At this meeting, thus, Shri Hiren Mookherji’s name was unanimously decided.
Two days later, however, CPI representatives reported back that Hiren Da’s name was somehow missing in the electoral roll, and so a fresh opposition meeting had become necessary to select a new name.
The meeting solicited was duly held. It was at this second meeting that I suggested Justice H.R. Khanna’s name. Again, the name was readily accepted.
TAILPIECE
Justice Khanna passed away on 25 February 2008, at the age of 95. In its editorial after he delivered his landmark judgment, The New York Times had written: ‘If India ever finds its way back to the freedom and democracy that were proud hallmarks of its first 18 years as an independent nation, someone will surely erect a monument of Justice HR Khanna of the Supreme Court.’
L.K. ADVANI
New Delhi
July 2, 2012
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