Voices Anand Neelakantan Ravi Shankar S Vaidhyasubramaniam Sunaina Anand Shampa Dhar-Kamath Swami Sukhabodhananda THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment June 9 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Those King Cong Years As the Congress rejoices in its electoral revival, its performance in Uttar Pradesh, which decides India’s prime ministers, has given it hope. A look at the eight Congress chief ministers who took the state from massive victories to abject failure affecting the fortunes of the Gandhi family T Book Excerpts he journey from UP to the prime ministerial chair began with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first PM of India, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from Allahabad district (East)-cum-Jaunpur district (West) (now Phulpur). He was followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri, an MP from Allahabad (now Prayagraj), and Indira Gandhi, Lok Sabha MP from Raebareli (prior to that a Rajya Sabha MP from UP). The list doesn’t end here—Charan Singh from Baghpat, Rajiv Gandhi from Amethi, VP Singh from Fatehpur, Chandra Shekhar from Ballia and Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Lucknow, all went on to become PMs. It is a widespread perception that kendra ki sarkar ka raasta UP se hokar guzarta hai—the way to the Central government goes through UP. Except Gulzarilal Nanda, Morarji Desai, PV Narasimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Dr Manmohan Singh, all other nine PMs of India have been either residents of UP or were elected from UP. relations have generally improved very considerably since 1946... I feel that the issue is one which should be resolved amicably in a spirit of mutual toleration and goodwill between two communities.” Tenure: May 20, 1952-December 27, 1954 Later, LK Advani, lamenting the fact that the Constituency: Bareilly Municipality Pant government did not adopt the suggestions of Patel, wrote: “The letter (by Patel) outlined When statues of Ram Lalla and Sita appeared an approach to the resolution of the Ayodhya at the disputed site in Ayodhya on the night of dispute which was flawless. Had it been 22-23 December 1949, Pant was the premier. adopted, the problem could have been solved Three days later, on 26 December 1949, PM long ago—and that too, amicably and expediNehru wrote to him, “I am tiously This turned into the Ram .” disturbed at developments at Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Ayodhya. Earnestly hope you dispute that has influenced will personally interest India’s politics for several yourself in this matter. decades since then, and was Dangerous example being set finally settled by the Supreme there which will have bad Court on 9 November 2019. consequences.” After that, During his tenure as the premier Sardar Patel wrote a letter to of the United Provinces, Pant Pant on 9 January 1950, took some historic decisions and suggesting ways to resolve the implemented them effectively . dispute. Among other things, One of the decisions of his Patel said: “I think it has been government, which was admitone of the outstanding tedly revolutionary was the , achievements of your adminisabolition of the zamindari tration that despite many system. He is also credited with Dr Sampurnanand upsetting factors, communal passing the Hindu Code Bill in the Govind Ballabh Pant The First ‘Ratna’ state, which made monogamy compulsory for Hindu men while giving Hindu women the rights to divorce as well as inheritance of ancestral property . Dr Sampurnanand The Ambitious Scholar Tenure: December 28, 1954-April 9, 1957; April 10, 1957-December 6, 1960 Constituency: Banaras City South Prior to Independence, Varanasi was among the prominent centres of the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements and also a prime centre for the Hindu Mahasabha activities. Dr Sampurnanand had become one of the key figures in the Varanasi unit of the Congress by the early 1930s… It was Dr Sampurnanand’s government that officially changed the name of the historic city from Banaras to Varanasi, effective from 24 May 1956. On 3 January 1955, Pant was sworn in as a Union Cabinet minister after summons from PM Nehru, and on 10 January 1955, he was Turn to page 2 Govind Ballabh Pant with Indira Gandhi
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