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| Exclusive excerpts from Arjun Singh |
| Exclusive excerpts from Arjun Singh's book on his relationship with Rajiv
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| INDIA
, 3-July-2012
2:44:41 AM |
| These are excerpts from the new autobiography by Congress leader Arjun Singh, A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time. The book (Hay House Publishers, India) will be available in bookstores starting June this year for Rs. 599 in India.
SUNSET
In the 2009 general elections, the Congress Party, along with its coalition partners, acquired a majority in the Lok Sabha. Dr Manmohan Singh again became prime minister on 22 May 2009, while Sonia Gandhi decided to remain Congress president as well as chairperson of the UPA. After the process for cabinet formation was over, I was taken aback when I learnt that my name was not in the list of Council of Ministers despite all that I had done for the Congress Party as a loyal member for so many decades. Moreover, I had once enjoyed the confidence of both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, during whose tenures I had carried out many crucial assignments. Deeply hurt, I was unable to understand why I had not been appointed a minister. I then decided to face the reality in a stoic manner and, after deep self-introspection, came to the conclusion that the older generation had to make way for youngsters and one could not hope to hold on to office indefinitely.
After the Congress Party amassed more than 400 seats (out of 542) in the December 1984 Lok Sabha elections, Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister. In the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections that followed in February 1985, the Congress won a three-fourth majority. Rajiv Gandhi sent me a message of congratulations. The deferred Lok Sabha election for the Bhopal constituency was held towards the end of January 1985 and the Congress Party won here also. As already mentioned in Chapter 17, with this win, the Congress, for the first time since independence, bagged all the 40 Lok Sabha seats allotted to Madhya Pradesh.
On 11 March 1985, I was duly elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party and sworn in once again as chief minister. The next day,
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