Congress History

The victory margin today was 19, more than the narrowest ever margin of victory - the one on trust vote moved by Atal Behari Vajpayee in March 1998. This vote was won by 15 votes. Vajpayee in fact holds a record of sorts - he won trust vote in his first term as the Prime Minister by the narrowest margin of 15 votes; and lost trust of the House in his second term as the PM by the narrowest margin of one vote.

A fairly recent phenomenon, thanks to minority and coalition governments, the first such motion of confidence was moved in the sixth Lok Sabha in 1979 by the then Prime Minister Charan Singh. It was not voted as Singh tendered his resignation, and the House was adjourned sine die.

So far, the Lok Sabha has seen 12 confidence motions (including today's) by eight prime ministers. The highest - three notices - for trust vote were moved by Vajpayee. Two motions of confidence each were given by V.P. Singh in the ninth Lok Sabha and H.D. Deve Gowda in the 11th Lok Sabha. PMs Chandra Shekhar, Narsimha Rao and I.K. Gujral moved one motion each, while Charan Singh's August 1979 motion was not voted as he had resigned.

Interestingly, the concept of a trust vote started only in 1979 because in all general elections before that from 1952 to 1977 the mandate was so decisive that there was no need for a confidence motion.

The first time the need arose was in 1979 when Charan Singh was the Prime Minister after an earlier split in the Janata Party.

Realising he did not have the requisite numbers, Charan Singh did not even come to the House to face the confidence motion and resigned.

The next time a trust vote was moved was a decade later when V.P. Singh became the Prime Minister in December 1989.

He won but stepped down a year later after losing a no-confidence motion.

Chandra Shekhar, who succeeded Singh, won a trust motion in November 1990 but resigned five months later after the Congress party withdrew its support to the government. Prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao won a confidence vote in July 1991. His government lasted a full five years.

Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda won a trust motion in June 1996 but lost in April 1997 when the Congress withdrew its support to his government.

Inder Kumar Gujral, who succeeded Gowda, won a vote of confidence in April 1997 but resigned in November after losing the majority support.

More than half a century after he first walked through its porch, one of the country's most popular leaders, the former Prime Minister, late Lal Bahadur Shastri, has come back "home''. With his sprawling house on Motilal Nehru Marg going back in time to inspire future generations, his legacy is all set to move out of trunks and beyond the pages of history to become `alive'.

From a blue overcoat - arguably the country's most `powerful' coat that was worn by the towering Jawaharlal Nehru as well as his successor, the tiny Lal Bahadur Shastri - to probably the smallest `cup' in history, the most treasured possessions of Lal Bahadur Shastri have finally returned to where they belong. All on display at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial that was inaugurated in the Capital by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, on Saturday, it will be a walk through his life and times.

Different families

"Nehru gave my father the overcoat when he was going to Kashmir. When he came back, my father tried to give it back, but Nehru told him to keep it saying that he would need it. My father always kept it and wore it whenever he went out. I don't think that there is another coat that has been worn by two Prime Ministers of the country who belong to different families,'' said his son Anil Shastri.

The coat that had been part of his son's inheritance, has been carefully conserved by the National Museum. A man of simple needs, the second Prime Minister of the country might have not been a larger-than-life figure like Nehru, but he has managed to leave a legacy of honesty, bravery and commitment perhaps, just as enormous.

Finding space for the things important to him like the overcoat and his spinning-wheel, the Memorial also has a room dedicated to the force behind him - his wife Lalita. Standing by him during his toughest times, she was the one who held his family together.

"When my father was in jail during the freedom movement, he got a message telling him to come immediately as my mother was critically ill. He took two days of parole and came home with a doctor. After examining her, the doctor told my father that she had stopped eating and it was very serious. He made her promise that she would drink two cups of milk everyday.

She didn't want to tell Babuji that there was no money and that she couldn't afford milk. So she went to the blacksmith to ask him to make her a small cup, in return for her gold bangle, so that she didn't break her promise to him,'' said a tearful Sunil Shastri.

The `Fiat' car still parked outside his house on display represents an era of politics with a purpose that is now only the stuff of legends or found in museums. A 1964 model that he bought with a loan from the Punjab National Bank when he was Prime Minister, but he died before repaying the loan.

• Although the ashes were to be immersed at Hardwar, one section of party workers changed the venue to Rishikesh.
• When chief minister N.D. Tiwari found out, he directed officials to bring the urn to Hardwar. By this time, half the ashes had already been immersed in Rishikesh. Tiwari later immersed the rest of the ashes at Har ki Pauri in Hardwar.

Rao’s two sons, who had accompanied the urn to the state, remained silent spectators to the fight.

"Even in his death, Rao was given a shoddy treatment by Congress leadership. His body was not kept in the AICC office to enable party leaders to pay homage. This is an insult to the leader of Rao's stature," TDP supremo and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu alleged at a press conference here.

He said Sonia Gandhi should own responsibility for "improper funeral" accorded to Rao.

"Befitting his stature, Rao should have been cremated in the national capital. I cannot believe that Delhi government could not find a five acre land for his samadhi," Naidu said.

The TDP Chief said his party would raise the issue in Parliament as the way the former Prime Minister was ignored by his own party amounted to hurting the "Telugu Pride." Naidu pointed out that while the mortal remains of Sitaram Kesari and Rajesh Pilot were kept in AICC headquarters to enable party workers to pay their last respects, the Congress leadership deliberately ignored the sentiments of Rao's followers and showed callousness towards the departed leader.

The long-term social and economic impact of the Rajiv Gandhi government has not received the kind of attention it deserves. The convergence of Gandhi's birth anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Centre of Development of Telematics (C-DOT) this month perhaps offers an opportunity to look at the impact of what was initiated by Rajiv Gandhi in the mid-1980s.

Rather then getting entangled in cold statistics, what one needs to focus on while assessing the legacy of the Gandhi government, is the dramatic re-engineering of the national mindset, enthusiasm, energy, hope, aspirations and mood during his days. One of the most important priorities that Gandhi and his advisors, such as myself, recognised was to use technology as an entry point and not end in itself to bring about generational changes in our age-old processes and delivery systems that affect mass of people specially in rural areas.

As a result many new programmes were launched in communications, defence, space, agriculture, computerization, planning, etc. The Technology Missions related to water, literacy, immunization, oil-seeds, dairy development and telecommunications were designed to bring new missionary zeal and new management methods to problem solving. There were serious government discussions on launching other Technology Missions related to environment, housing, and managing floods and droughts as well.

C-DOT was the foundation to energize young talent in the country for indigenous development. The task was to develop our own digital rural exchange to provide nationwide STD/PCO network to enhance accessibility and connect rural people to India and the world. This was seen as a pipedream. Nearly two decades hence that mandate seems fulfilled. Now we have 90 million phones - although a lot still remains to be achieved.

(Click on "Full Story" for more.)

According to the publishers, Gandhi has become a rage of sorts in Pakistan, evident in editorials of Pakistani papers lavishing praise on the Italy-born woman who won power but turned her back on it. "It is rare for Pakistani publishers to evince such interest in an Indian politician and to make great efforts for it," said a Penguin official.

The Pakistani edition will be updated with an "epilogue" on Gandhi's dramatic victory and renunciation of the nation's top office and the debate over her foreign birth that appears to have grown silent for now.

When the 57-year-old Gandhi refused to become prime minister - much against the wishes of allies and party colleagues - amid a shrill campaign by rivals against her foreign origins, the act was noted across the border too.

She was even cited as an example for Pakistani leadership.

Columnist Ayaz Amir wrote on May 21 in Dawn , "Consider the grace and dignity Sonia Gandhi has shown. Consider her measured words, no empty rhetoric (Ms Bhutto please note), no verbosity. Compare this with the desire for eternal power evident in Islamabad and it is tempting to conclude that the Pakistani political class and leadership are simply incapable of getting it right about the country's affairs. "Like all his military predecessors Gen Musharraf thinks he is saving Pakistan. A bit of Sonian renunciation, or call it Sonian wisdom, should do him a world of good."