New Delhi: Former prime minister Indira Gandhi addressed 34 public meetings and deployed 62 ministers in one Lok Sabha constituency during the 1982 Garhwal bypoll, and the voting date was changed thrice in one year — all to defeat H.N. Bahuguna, UP’s 9th chief minister.
These are among the instances shared by Bahuguna’s daughter and Allahabad MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who defected to the BJP from the Congress before the 2017 assembly elections, in a book about her father.
Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna: A Political Crusader will be released in Delhi Wednesday by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu. Among other things, it seeks to detail what Joshi describes as a campaign by Indira Gandhi and her “caucus” to hound Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, who had an on-off relationship with the Congress.
A freedom fighter jailed for his participation in the Quit India Movement, Bahuguna served as Union minister, as well as chief minister of India’s most populous state, decades before its 2000 bifurcation. He died in March 1989.
According to Joshi’s book, Indira was often told by V.P. Singh — the former PM and UP CM who went on to have a fallout with the Congress himself — and Rajendra Kumari Bajpai, a Union minister under Indira, that Bahuguna was aspiring to become prime minister.
Another notable claim made in the book is that Indira wanted to arrest former PM and Uttar Pradesh CM Charan Singh’s wife Gayatri Devi, but Bahuguna refused to oblige.
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How Bahuguna became CM
Bahuguna became CM in 1973 following a spell of President’s Rule that came after a rebellion by three battalions of the UP Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC).
The Army was called in to control the rebellion, which led to the death of over 30 police personnel and soldiers.
The episode severely dented the image of the then-UP CM Kamalapati Tripathi of the Congress, who resigned in light of the rebellion.
The ‘caucus’
Over time, the book alleges, a caucus surrounding Indira — P.N. Haksar (her principal secretary), D.P. Mishra (former Madhya Pradesh CM), Uma Shankar Dixit (home minister in 1973-74), Chandrajit Yadav (Union minister in Indira’s cabinet), V.P. Singh, and Bajpai — instigated her against Bahuguna, who had been unpopular among party members due to certain factors.
He published the entire report of an expert committee “constituted by Kamalapati Tripathi for the execution of the Land Fencing Act”, which the book says “exposed” some Congressmen who were violating the law.
One reason, according to the book, that annoyed Sanjay Gandhi was Bahuguna’s non-cooperation in industrialist K.K. Birla’s election bid for the Rajya Sabha in 1974. Bahuguna, “with proletariat leanings”, opposed the candidature of Birla, who filed his nomination as an Independent but had the Congress’ support, the book says.
Indira Gandhi’s secretary Yashpal Kapoor, the book adds, was canvassing for Birla from the chief minister’s guest house while Bahuguna was in Delhi for medical treatment.
After reaching Lucknow, he told Kapoor to make alternative arrangements, Joshi’s book claims.
Kapoor allegedly complained to Indira and Sanjay Gandhi. The book then quotes from Birla’s autobiography to explain what ensued when the latter went to meet Indira and Sanjay after his defeat. According to this account, Sanjay Gandhi allegedly told Birla that Bahuguna “deceived” Indira.
Indira Gandhi, the book claims, then added, “he has not only ill-treated you but also hoodwinked me”.
Bahuguna’s blatant refusal to allow Sanjay Gandhi “interference” worked against him, the book says.
Joshi also cites one incident when Sanjay Gandhi allegedly asked Bahuguna to transfer the Rae Bareli district magistrate, and the latter ignored the order.
The relationship, the book adds, soured continuously. After the declaration of Emergency, Indira wanted Gayatri Devi, wife of Charan Singh, to be arrested but Bahuguna allegedly refused to do it.
Charan Singh had rebelled against Indira and was a prominent opposition leader leading the agitation against Indira during that period.
“When, in 1975, the Allahabad High Court judge Jagmohan Lal Sinha unseated Indira on the Raj Narain petition, Bahuguna and his son Vijay reached Indira’s residence with the order,” Joshi writes.
“The caucus was sitting there. Then-defence minister Bansi Lal sarcastically remarked, ‘Bahuguna ji, what have you done? If it was in Haryana, we would have seen to it that Mrs Gandhi does not lose’.”
Bahuguna, the book claims, rebutted that “that is why we have a prime minister from Allahabad… We never interfere in the judicial process”.
The author said that apart from Bahuguna, Babu Jagjivan Ram advised Indira to hand over the post for a while to the trusted Swaran Singh, but “she didn’t appreciate the advice”.
Rather, her acolytes persuaded her to declare Emergency. The author adds. “The day the Emergency was imposed, he (H.N. Bahuguna) made a call to Mrs Gandhi and said ‘Indira ji what have you done? You are riding a tiger, what when you dismount?’”
‘Indira vs Bahuguna’
One of the book’s chapters deals with how Indira Gandhi allegedly used every effort to defeat Bahuguna when he resigned from the Congress and contested from the Garhwal Lok Sabha seat in 1982.
The book says the events that followed his May 1980 resignation from the party were unprecedented.
On 26 May 1981, the Election Commission issued the first notification for the poll, which said the date of polling was 14 June. But there was massive rigging and — in the first such instance — the commission cancelled the election and ordered repolling.
Then, the book notes, the commission kept changing dates — from 30 September 1981 to 22 November 1981 and 19 May 1982.
V.P. Singh, who was the UP chief minister during these days, used all his clout to postpone the election on Indira’s directive, the book alleges.
Finally, on the day of voting, 15,675 police personnel were deployed in the constituency, according to official records quoted in the book. Haryana CM Bhajan Lal deployed Haryana Police in the UP constituency to capture booths, which the Election Commission noted in a report, the book adds.
Speaking to ThePrint, Joshi said “Indira was furious about the rising popularity of Bahuguna”.
“The caucus kept instigating Indira against Bahuguna and other satraps. Sanjay Gandhi kept wielding his clout, which Bahuguna ignored, but, in that era, politics was different,” she added.
Joshi said she had given thousands of letters written by Bahuguna to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and the book is based on correspondence and letters from that era, which “unfurls many hard facts about Indira’s working”.
“In that era, there was no such strong emergence of regional parties like today. There was more personal contact of leaders than there is today,” she added. “Politics has completely changed. Ultimately, politics is about power, which never changed.”
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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