Chaudhary Charan Singh, India’s 6th PM, first non-Congress CM of UP

Amid political upheaval in North India in mid-1960s, socialist stalwart Ram Manohar Lohia had launched a campaign to oust the Congress party from power in Uttar Pradesh. Lohia and other Opposition leaders got this opportunity soon after the 1967 UP Assembly polls, which saw the Congress, for the first time, failing to win a majority while managing to win 199 seats in the 425-member state Assembly. With backing from Lohia and Raj Narain and the Bhartiya Jana Sangh (BJS)’s Nanaji Deshmukh, then senior Congress leader Chaudhary Charan Singh stepped up to engineer a defection in his party with the help of 16 Congress MLAs in order to form UP’s first non-Congress coalition government.

Emerging as a popular leader of the North Indian farmer communities such as Jats, Yadavs, Gujjars, Kurmis and other backward classes as well as Muslims since early fifties, Charan Singh had been the revenue minister in the cabinet of UP’s first chief minister Govind Ballabh Pant. In this capacity, he proved to be instrumental in implementation of historic legislations for zamindari abolition and land ceiling. In the All India Congress Committee (AICC)’s Nagpur session in June 1959, he opposed a resolution on co-operative farming too.

Charan Singh was also a minister in the government led by UP’s second CM Dr Sampurnanand, where his portfolios were frequently changed. He resigned from the Sampurnanand cabinet in April 1959. He was inducted into the cabinet of UP’s third CM Chandra Bhanu Gupta as well, and became its home minister.

In the hung Assembly thrown up by the 1967 elections, the Opposition parties had established their presence effectively. The BJS had won 98 seats, SSP 44, CPI 13, Swatantra Party 12, PSP 11, RPI 10, CPM 1 and Independents 37. Gupta returned as the CM as leader of the single largest party (Congress with 199 seats), but he had to resign after 19 days in the wake of a major Congress defection.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath paying tribute to Kisan Leader and former Prime Minister of India Chaudhary Charan Singh on the occasion of his birth anniversary at State assembly in Lucknow. (Express file photo by Vishal Srivastav)

Charan Singh was sworn in as UP’s fifth CM on April 3, 1967. He became the state’s first non-Congress CM, heading the coalition Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD) government of his newly-floated party, Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD), and various Opposition parties ranging from the BJS to the Left parties, which had conflicting views and ideologies. The BJS’s Ram Prakash Gupta was his Deputy CM, even as he appointed a Gurjar leader Ram Chandra Vikal as another Deputy CM. Vikal had also left Congress with him. The Charan Singh-led SVD government was able to reach an agreement with striking government employees for bringing an end to their months-long agitation. On July 24, 1967, Chandra Bhanu Gupta moved a no-confidence motion against the SVD government, which was taken up by the Assembly, but the government survived.

Charan Singh’s first tenure as the CM could however last only till February 25, 1968. His government was gripped by multiple problems. The SVD ally SSP began an “Angrezi Hatao” campaign, as part of which two cabinet ministers courted arrest and resigned. Some other parties too withdrew from the ruling coalition, leading to Charan Singh’s resignation and his recommendation for dissolution of the Assembly. After a year of President’s rule, UP saw fresh Assembly polls in 1969. The Charan Singh-led BKD won 98 seats and the Jana Sangh 49, with the Congress winning 211 seats in the 425-member House that led to Chandra Bhanu Gupta’s return as the CM yet again. Within a year, however, the Congress split between the Congress (O) and the Congress (R), forcing Gupta to step down after losing the majority support.

This paved the way for Charan Singh’s return as the CM — this time with the help of Indira Gandhi’s Congress (R). He took the oath of office as the CM for the second time on February 18, 1970, but was again faced with fresh troubles. Grappling with dissension, he demanded the resignations of 14 ministers, including Kamlapati Tripathi, belonging to the Congress (R), who refused. He made his recommendation to then governor B Gopala Reddy for the rebel ministers’ dismissal, but the governor instead asked Charan Singh to resign. He quit the CM post on October 1, 1970, following which President’s rule was again imposed in UP.

Born in 1902 in Noorpur village near Hapur, Charan Singh got his MA and Law degrees from Agra University, and started practising as a lawyer at Ghaziabad. He was elected to the then United Provinces Assembly from Chhaprauli in 1937 on the Congress ticket. After Independence, he was part of the interim Pant-headed government. In the first UP Assembly polls held in 1952, he won from the Baghpat West assembly seat. In the 1957 and 1962 Assembly polls, he won from Kotana. In the 1967 polls, he won from the Chhaprauli Assembly constituency, again as a Congress nominee. In the 1969 and 1974 elections, however, he contested as the BKD candidate from Chhaprauli and won.

While still active in UP politics, Charan Singh contested the 1971 Lok Sabha polls on the BKD ticket from Muzaffarnagar and lost to the CPI’s Vijaypal Singh.

After several Opposition parties were merged to form the Janata Party in a bid to take on the Congress dispensation led by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Charan Singh contested the 1977 Lok Sabha elections from Baghpat on the Janata Party ticket and won. He became the Deputy PM in the new government led by Morarji Desai.

Two years later, Charan Singh defected from the Janata Party to form a new outfit, the Janata Party (Secular), and went on to take over as the PM on 28 July 1979 with the support of the Congress. But, after just 23 days, he had to resign on August 20, 1979, when the Congress withdrew support from his government. India’s 6th Prime Minister, Charan Singh remained in his post until January 14, 1980 when Indira Gandhi returned as the PM following fresh general elections. So far, he has been among only two UP CMs — the other was VP Singh — who became the PM. His two stints as the UP CM together amounted to only about one-and-a-half years.

Charan Singh won from Baghpat on the Janata Party (S) ticket in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, and then again in the 1984 polls as the candidate of his new outfit Bhartiya Lok Dal (BLD).

Widely acknowledged as a “champion of peasants”, Charan Singh has been credited with creating a new political class encompassing the farming communities in North India, which has had impacted politics of UP and other states like Bihar, Haryana and Rajasthan. Paying his tribute to him, BJP stalwart LK Advani has stated: “Since 1967, as the CM, home minister, or as a top leader of the country, Chaudhary (Charan Singh) Saheb initiated a debate, which nobody did in 67 years.”

Charan Singh passed away in May 1987 in Delhi. Taking a leaf out of his erstwhile party Congress, he also brought his family members into politics and helped them get established as leaders. His wife Gayatri Devi was elected as an MLA from Iglas in 1969, and from Gokul in 1974, both times on the BKD ticket. She was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kairana in 1980 as a Janata Party (S) candidate, but lost from Mathura in 1984 as a BLD nominee. His son Ajit Singh formed the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) following several switchovers and served as a Union minister in different governments. Following his demise due to Covid-19 last year, Ajit’s son Jayant Chaudhary took over as the RLD president. In the upcoming UP Assembly polls, the RLD has forged an alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP).