Lust for Office?

A precarious coalition

It was an Indian version of political poker. When President N. Sanjiva Reddy last week summoned caretaker Prime Minister Morarji Desai, 83, and his chief challenger, Charan Singh, 76, to his official residence in New Delhi, the two rivals presented lists totaling an identical number. Each claimed to have 279 supporters in the Lok Sabha (lower house), nine more than necessary to form a majority government. Even as Reddy scrutinized the conflicting claims, members of Parliament were changing allegiances behind the scene. In the end, the President chose Singh, the leader of 10 million Jats (farmers) from northern India, as his country's fifth Prime Minister.

Singh will head the first coalition government in India's postcolonial years. His unstable support consists of his own faction of the multiparty Janata group that supported Desai until recently, plus two rival branches of the Congress Party, one of which is headed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. So precarious is this coalition that Reddy, in his letter asking Singh to form a government, requested that the new Prime Minister seek a vote of confidence in the lower house "at the earliest possible opportunity."

Singh's willingness to accept Gandhi's support opened him up to charges of opportunism. Singh was said to have accused her of being a congenital liar who had conspired to murder opposition leaders. One of those leaders was Singh himself, who had been jailed by Indira during her 19-month state of emergency.

At week's end, Desai resigned as head of the Janata Party, saying that he was withdrawing from politics. He was replaced by Jagjivan Ram, who served as Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in Desai's government.

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