August 15, 1977, Forty Years Ago: Indira Calls On JP
According to reports, Mrs Gandhi drove from Sadaquat Ashram, headquarters of the Pradesh Congress, to JP’s residence. According to reports, Mrs Gandhi drove from Sadaquat Ashram, headquarters of the Pradesh Congress, to JP’s residence.
Mrs Indira Gandhi met Jayaprakash Narayan at his residence at the Mahila Charkha Samiti in Patna. The meeting arranged on her initiative as a courtesy call, lasted 50 minutes. JP wished Mrs Gandhi “a brighter future than the bright past she has already bad”. “I gave her my best wishes and a brighter future than the bright past she had already had,” he told the media. After the meeting, Mrs Gandhi refused to say anything beyond the remark that the meeting was “personal, nothing formal”. According to reports, Mrs Gandhi drove from Sadaquat Ashram, headquarters of the Pradesh Congress, to JP’s residence. She reached there at 10 a.m. and came out of his room at 10.50 a.m. JP came to the stairs to see her off.
Message From Belchi
An analysis of Mrs Gandhi’s two-day foray into Bihar said the visit establishes beyond doubt that she is determined to re-establish her position as supreme leader of the Congress and demonstrate that the party cannot do without her. The pilgrimage to Belchi village on elephant back was arranged to prove that no name is a bigger draw than her’s. While crowds showed more curiosity than positive support, the fact that she encountered no hostility, except at a few places, in the state in which the movement to unseat her was born, was instructive. Her address to Congress legislators was equally an exercise designed to show that nobody could activise the Congress except her.
President’s Address
Calling for an all-out relentless war against spiralling prices of essential commodities, high cost of living and “unscrupulous elements”, President Sanjiva Reddy warned that “we can no longer take for granted the endurance and patience of our over-burdened people”. In his Independence Day-eve broadcast, he highlighted the need to uplift the downtrodden, the weaker sections and the rural millions.
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