I was very grateful to Maharani Gayatri Devi whom I invited for discussions. She came, and at that very time, another event had taken place. Some of the leaders of the Opposition from the Lok Sabha had called on the President, and they had pointed out that this type of trouble was starting there, so it was much better that some way was found out. The President suggested to them that it was much better that the Assembly was called earlier. The moment I heard about it, I had consultations with the Chief Minister of Rajasthan and the Governor also and I wanted to know whether they would be willing to advance the date of the meeting of the legislature. The next morning I met Maharani Gayatri Devi, who is an hon. member of this House, and suggested to her that, instead of starting this type of campaign on the streets of Jaipur and other cities of Rajasthan, it was much better that we created conditions conducive to a peaceful running of government and peaceful holding of the meeting of the legislature. I told her that the Government of Rajasthan was willing to advance the meeting of the legislature. Originally it was supposed to be held on 21st March, they agreed to advance it to the 14th March. When I suggested this Maharani Gayatri Devi made a counter proposal. She said this could be done, the situation in Jaipur could be controlled, but it was necessary that Section 144 should be withdrawn. I said in the prevailing conditions it was rather difficult to consider the suggestion, but if she was going to help, to go round and persuade people to give up this type of activity, certainly I would make this suggestion to the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Immediately I talked to the Chief Minister of Rajasthan and asked him whether he would consider the withdrawal of Section 144. I must say it was a rather difficult decision for him, because in the disturbed conditions to withdraw Section 144 was a difficult decision, but looking to this possibility that this was going to facilitate normal conditions in Rajasthan and was going to facilitate the holding the legislature’s meeting earlier, he still took that risk.
As to what has happened afterwards, I do not want to go into detail, because that is a matter for the judicial inquiry to go into, because what happened is certainly very relevant to the inquiry, about the firing etc. So, I do not want to touch those particular facts.
I have mentioned all these facts to show that there was no question of defeating democracy. There was no question of depriving the Opposition parties of their right of forming a government. If at all they wanted to have a showdown, if I can use that phrase in a constitutional sense, it is better to have a showdown on the floor of the House instead of having that on the streets of Jaipur. That shows the attitude of the man. He was certainly exercised because of the rioting, because of the firing etc., but he still persisted in resorting to the right type of measures.
Unfortunately, the story did not stop there. I was asked many times during the course of the speeches what happened after 7th March. It was all quiet, it was all quiet in the sense that there were no disturbances, but there were no disturbances because afterwards strict curfew was imposed and even the army had to be called into the city of Jaipur. But what was the activity of the opposition, some of the opposition leaders, I am not saying all the opposition leaders. Wall posters were distributed all over the city, if at any time this wretched Sukhadia Government was sworn in they would see how it was being sworn in.
