Word: janata
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...opposition Congress Party, offered a routine parliamentary motion of no confidence in the government of India's Prime Minister Morarji Desai early this month. At the time no one took the motion very seriously. But within a few days, Desai's support in the ruling Janata Party, the five-group coalition that routed Indira Gandhi in national elections 28 months ago, had all but evaporated. Last week Desai, 83, was forced to resign, and Indian President N. Sanjiva Reddy asked Chavan to try to form a new government...
Desai's downfall had been in the making for some time. The Janata Party had never been united by anything but opposition to Gandhi. In recent weeks, disillusionment had grown over the government's failure to enforce a viable economic policy, despite huge food and foreign exchange reserves. In addition, intraparty disputes over the growing power of Jana Sangh, a right-wing Janata faction, had led to widespread defections from the alliance...
...support, a branch of the divided Congress Party, holds only 77 seats in the 542-member Lok Sabha (lower house). Since no party wants a mid-term general election, the best bet at week's end was that Charan Singh, 76, the powerful leader of the new breakaway Janata (secular) Party, would be the next in line to form a government if Chavan did not succeed. If all else fails, the country could be forced to accept a weak and interim nonpartisan "national government...
...ministership she lost in 1977 might be enhanced by her being in jail. During the debate over how to punish her for ordering the arrest in 1975 of four officials assigned to investigate the tangled business affairs of her son Sanjay, 32, she sought to provoke Desai's Janata Party into rashly locking her up. By so doing, the Times of India editorialized last week, she would gain "concrete evidence that when it comes to dealing with political opponents, Janata is no better than she." Then she could argue that her stay in the slam mer had purged...
Desai, 82, had no desire to help Gandhi wrap herself in martyr's robes. But Janata hardliners, stung by Gandhi's barb that the proceedings were "like a medieval star chamber," balked at Desai's plan of suspending her from Parliament until she publicly apologized for the 1975 offense. Snapped Janata Member Kanwar Lal Gupta: "Indira-ji has put 150,000 people in jail. Can't she spend three days there herself?" The vote to condemn...