When Indira Gandhi overpowered Congress, fielded presidential candidate against her own party’s candidate

New Delhi: The politics of the country has also seen that period when Indira Gandhi gave her presidential candidate against the declared candidate of her own party. Not only did he field his candidate, but also appealed to his MLAs and MPs to vote on the ‘voice of their conscience’. This period was of 1969. Then Indira’s hold on the government and the organization was not strong. In such a situation, when the then President Dr. Zakir Hussain passed away suddenly, Indira wanted the President to be such that her coordination would be fine. A meeting of the parliamentary party was called in Bangalore (today’s Bengaluru) to decide the candidate.

There was no consensus on the presidential candidate. When voting took place, only Babu Jagjivan Ram and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed remained with Indira. The remaining five members of the parliamentary board, party president Nijalingappa, K Kamaraj, SK Patil, Morarji Desai and Yashwantrao Chavan, supported N.K. Sanjeeva Reddy’s name was declared as the candidate. It was an uncomfortable situation for Indira. His argument was that an agreement has been reached with the opposition parties on the name of VV Giri, so the Congress should declare VV Giri as its candidate.

Indira made VV Giri ready to fill the nomination and with Babu Jagjivan Ram herself as her proposer, made the message clear that she wanted to vote in favor of VV Giri. The organization was in the hands of Indira’s opposition camp. The result was that all the states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh supported Sanjeev Reddy. It was a difficult period for Indira because if VV Giri had lost now, it could have led to Indira’s resignation. VV Giri’s position could have been strengthened only from Uttar Pradesh. Indira herself took command.

Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar bullied President Zail Singh in front of Queen Elizabeth, then it was amazing!
He asked people like Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna to create an atmosphere in favor of VV Giri. With Indira and the party coming face to face, the party seemed to be breaking up. Kamlapati Tripathi was then the UP Congress president. After the intervention of all the people, Kamalapati agreed and he sent a telegram to Nijalingappa a day before the polling, talking about giving the Congressmen the right to vote independently.

The votes cast on the voice of the soul had put VV Giri’s boat across. From UP, he got 181 votes while Reddy got 139 votes. Two facts should be further considered in this presidential election. One, VV Giri was also the choice of the opposition. Secondly, the decision to nationalize the banks brought socialists and communists to Indira’s side.
(pure politics – story)