Word: janata
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...offer aside, Desai snapped: "You put perfume here, but you spread a bad smell about the party elsewhere." With that retort the Prime Minister triggered a crisis in his 16-month-old government that led to the resignation of two Cabinet ministers, fractured the fragile unity of the ruling Janata Party and-unwittingly-cleared the way for a possible political comeback by his predecessor, Indira Gandhi...
...immediate cause of Desai's ire was Narain's repeated demands for the resignation of Janata Party President Chandra Shekhar, who is Desai's personal protégé. The Health Minister had accused Chandra Shekhar of political intrigue and undemocratic behavior. But as Desai fully realized, Narain's real target was not Chandra Shekhar but Desai himself. Rising to the challenge, the Prime Minister announced that Chandra Shekhar would remain in place and called upon top Janata leaders to rebuke the obstreperous Narain...
...formidable figure of Home Minister Charan Singh, 75, whose ambition to succeed Desai as Prime Minister is surpassed only by his abiding hatred for Indira Gandhi. Though temporarily incapacitated by a heart attack, Singh warned that Desai's action against Narain had "sounded the death knell of the Janata Party." At the same time, he launched his own indirect offensive against Desai by calling for Mrs. Gandhi's immediate arrest. Scorning Desai's view that she had been punished enough by her defeat at the polls last year, Singh declared that the government's failure...
...rift turned into unbridgeable chasm among the Congress leadership last week, many Indians were accusing Mrs. Gandhi of ruthlessly sacrificing the party that had ruled India uninterruptedly from 1947 to 1977. The immediate beneficiaries of Congress's quarrel were Prime Minister Desai and his Janata Party, which had overwhelmingly profited in the March elections from Mrs. Gandhi's soaring unpopularity. Most observers believed that Congress would gradually regain much of its former strength after it scuttled Mrs. Gandhi and renounced her dictatorial ways. But as the February elections approach in four states traditionally ruled by Congress, the party...
Rescue operations soon became entangled in politics. The state government is still controlled by the Congress Party, but Prime Minister Morarji Desai's Janata Party hopes to capture it in elections next February. Inevitably, there were charges from New Delhi that the state had been negligent in failing to warn villagers and careless in rescue efforts. In truth, emergency operations were reasonably effective. If anything hampered the relief effort, it was the seemingly endless helicopter inspections by officials seeking credit for coping with the disaster...