Opinion February 21, 1983, Forty Years Ago | Nellie massacre toll rises to 600; polling extended
The penultimate round of what has now become a four-phase polling ended with extremely thin voting.
The front page of The Indian Express on February 21, 1983. While arrangements were being made for Indira Gandhi’s visit to Nellie, and possibly Mangaldai, 45 more bodies were discovered in the Valley and the toll around Nellie was authoritatively put around 600 as the penultimate round of what has now become a four-phase polling ended with extremely thin voting.
Akali deadlock: The tripartite talks between the Centre, the Akali Dal and leaders of the Opposition ended without any settlement with the two major issues remaining unresolved. Even an attempt to involve Rajiv Gandhi, MP, in the final settlement did not prove fruitful. The river waters issue was near solution but a hitch stalled the settlement. Even the territorial claims which appeared almost settled could not make a headway.
Congress-I dissidents: With the Congress-I high command unable to decide on the change in leadership in Bihar, both ministerialists and dissidents continued lobbying with the central leaders. The dissidents stepped up the campaign for the removal of Jagannath Mishra as the chief minister.
Two dissident groups met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and submitted to her their grievances against Mishra and demanded his immediate replacement.
Tarapur n-fuel: India has been reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at the Tarapur reprocessing plant for the last two months, according to the Department of Atomic Energy. The spent fuel is from the Rajasthan atomic power plant. The quantity of fuel being reprocessed is not known.
This is the first time that India has carried out commercial-scale reprocessing of spent fuel from power reactors.
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