Born on 23 December 1902, late Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh or remembered as Champion of India’s Peasants served as the fifth Prime Minister of India (28 July 1979- 20 August 1979).
Today, on his birthday, let us have a look at the incident, which led him to become the Prime Minister of India and also forced him to resign just after 23 days in office.
The story goes back to the post Emergency era, when late PM Indira Gandhi lost power in Centre as well her own election from Rae Bareli.
The Janata Party won the Lok Sabha elections in 1977 by securing 345 seats out of 543 seats. Janata Party’s late Morarji Desai became India’s first-ever non-Congress Prime Minister and Singh was named as Home Minister.
Due to certain disagreements between the two, Desai asked Singh to resign in June 1978. Desai was under the constant pressure of senior party leaders including late Jayaprakash Narayan and others to bring Singh back, result of which, Singh was sworn in as the Deputy Prime Minister in January 1979.
The arrangements did not last long and Desai failed to secure himself as the leader of the house, result of which, Janata Party was reduced to minority and Desai had to ultimately resign.
Singh sought help from Gandhi (leader of Congress (I)) and tried his luck in becoming the head of government. With MPs from Gandhi’s Congress (I) and Janata Party, Singh became India’s fifth Prime Minister on 28 July 1979.
Gandhi withdrew her support even before even Singh could confirm his majority in Lok Sabha; he had to resign on 20 August 1979.
Following the protocol, Singh advised the then President late Nilam Sajiva Reddy to dissolve the Lok Sabha and call for general elections in January 1980.
Singh became the only Prime Minister who could not confirm his majority in the lower house of Parliament and served as the PM for merely 23 days.
But, he continued to serve as a caretaker Prime Minister of India from 20 August 1979- 14 January 1980.