Telegrams were sent to different places for processions, the type of speeches that were made giving all sorts of threats and creating a condition which would make it impossible for any legislature to meet peacefully or any responsible government to function peacefully - all this is the background in which Mr. Sukhadia decided on the 12th March, and he wrote to the Governor that he still thought that he commanded the majority - somebody can dispute that point, I am only mentioning a fact - but he did not want to take the responsibility of forming the government, because some people were determined to create disturbance, and he did not want the lives of the poor people sacrificed in this way. It was much better that he did not take the responsibility of forming the government, and he wrote to the Governor declining, not the offer, but refusing to form the government, though he considered that he was in a majority. (Interruptions)
That only shows your dislike of Sukhadia, but that does not prove your point.
Again the issue comes; what was the alternative before the Governor? According to the Governor’s judgement, Mr. Sukhadia was the right person to form the Government; he sent an invitation to him to form the Government and Mr. Sukhadia in turn wrote to him that he commanded a majority but that he did not want to take the responsibility of forming the Government because of certain happenings there. It was naturally the duty of the Cover- nor to take into consideration what happened after the 4th March. Under those circumstances, he felt that to invite the opposition leaders to form the Government would be putting a sort of a premium on violence; in those disturbed conditions he felt it better to allow the conditions to neutralise. I would like to assure hon. Member Mr. Dange that it was not to suppress anything; it was only with a view to neutralising the situation that the Governor was forced to take certain decisions. The only other alternative before the Governor was to ask the Opposition to form a Government, which he thought would be unwise. So, he made a recommendation to the Government which reached us on the 13th just before we were being sworn in; his view was that Mr. Sukhadia was unable to form the Government which reached us on the day we were to take the responsibility of forming a Government. The Governor said that under those circumstances he could not in all conscience ask the opposition parties to form the Government.
Shri S. M. Banerjee : Has he a conscience?
Shri Y. B. Chavan : If you have a conscience, he has. Now, in those circumstances, what was to be done? The legislature was to be convened the next day but it could not be, because there was no Government. The alternatives before us were either to dissolve the Assembly to suspend it and create conditions so that ultimately responsible Government might be restored. That is the background of the decision which the Government took. It was a sad and difficult decision but it was a duty for the Government to take such a decision. I have no doubt in my mind that even if Mr. Dange was sitting on this side and if he had the same faith in democracy that I had, and if he had the same loyalty to the Constitution that I had, he would have taken the same decision.
