It can’t be said with certainty that the unopposed election of Shri C.B. Gupta as CM ends the ministerial crisis in UP. It would be more accurate to say that the crisis has merely entered a new and more complex phase which may cause another round of interplay of imponderables. The stage has been set for it by the PM and the Congress President who backed the candidature of Shri Gupta and literally commanded the Congress Legislative Party not to nominate an alternate candidate as per an earlier decision taken by the Ministerialists. Already, as many as nineteen Ministers in the Sampurnanand Cabinet have decided not to join the Gupta Ministry and it is likely that a number of legislators will hive off with these erstwhile Ministers to form a hard core of a new anti-Ministerial clique. And it would be sheer folly to underestimate the prowess of the opposition from them to the new Ministry. The very fact that the Congress Legislature Party refused to accept Dr.Sampurnand’s resignation and instead passed a vote of “unshakeable” confidence in him was a measure of its disapproval of any change in its leadership. This was further emphasised n no unmistakable terms even at the eleventh hour when the pro- Sampurnand group nominated, somewhat hastily, Shri Choudhari Girdhari Lal to contest Shri Gupta’s claim. The fact that the nomination was withdrawn in deference to the wishes of Shri Nehru and Shri Sanjiva Reddy does not sustain the myth of Shri Gupta’s “unanimous” election. Indeed, Shri Gupta’s partisans have been claiming that they have larger support in the Legislature than is generally supposed. But this claim is based rather on the popular victory of Shri Gupta in the UPCC elections than on a precise estimate of the numerical strength of his following inside the Legislature. In the circumstances, it is difficult to see how Shri Gupta can function smoothly as CM except by courtesy of the pro-Sampurnanand legislators. Therefore, the problem in UP now is finding ways and means to avoid another Ministerial crisis. The Congress Legislature Party which is riven with internal rivalries cannot be trusted to solve this problem as long as the wound inflicted on it by the PCC and the Working Committee (by its insistence on electing Shri Gupta) is still raw. And to the extent that it was the PM, the Home Minister and the Congress President who were ultimately responsible for the “unopposed” election of Shri Gupta, it is their responsibility to sustain him in office. This can be done only through a compromise between the organisational and the legislative wings of the party. The mere fact that the leader of the organisational wing has been foisted upon the legislative wind does not rule out the possibility of a revolt in the ranks of the latter. With the general elections only two years away the urgent need for unity in the State Congress at all levels cannot be overlooked.
6th December, 1960.
