Crisis in Bihar

Press, 19 April 1979, Page 8

Crisis in Bihar

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi

India’s north-eastern state of Bihar has been plunged into serious political crisis by the resignation of 10 Cabinet Ministers and three junior Ministers from the State Government.

The resignations came two days before the Bihar Chief Minister (Mr Karpoori Thakur) was to seek a fresh vote of confidence from the ruling Janata Party members of the State Assembly. One of the Ministers who left the Government said they had all resigned in order to vote against Mr Thakur today, the Press Trust of India reports.

“We think we will be able to form a better Government with a new leader and fulfil] the hopes and aspirations of the people,” the Minister, who was not named, said. All the Ministers belonged to the Jana Sangh and Old Congress groupings within the Janata Party, a conglomerate of five political parties which merged two years ago before national elections.

In-fighting in the Janata Party has continued since it was formed with the Indian Peoples’ Party, the Socialist Party, and Congress for Democracy on the one side, and the militant Hindu revalist Jana Sangh and Old

Congress on the other. Chief Minister Thakur, a barber’s son, is a member of the former Indian Peoples’ Party. His success or defeat today will also directly reflect on the fortunes of central Indian Ministers, including the Prime Minister (Mr Morarji Desai), who belongs to ’the former Old Congress Party, which is opposing Mr Thakur.

But the second man in Mr Desai’s Cabinet, Mr Charan Singh, who is also Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, belongs to the People’s Party faction and supports the Bihar Chief Minister.