Creation
Calling elections on January 18, 1977 the government released political prisoners and weakened restrictions and censorship on the press, although the state of emergency was not officially ended. When opposition leaders sought the support of Jayaprakash Narayan for the forthcoming election, Narayan insisted that all opposition parties form a united front. The Janata party was officially launched on January 23, 1977 when the Janata Morcha, Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal, Swatantra Party, the Socialist Party of India of Raj Narain and George Fernandes, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) joined together, dissolving their separate identities (the merger of all party organisations was to be completed after the election). Although the political ideologies of Janata constituents were diverse and conflicting, the party was able to unite under the over-reaching appeal of Jayaprakash Narayan, who had been seen as the ideological leader of the anti-Emergency movement and now the Janata party. Morarji Desai was elected the first party chairman. Ramakrishna Hegde became the party general secretary, and Jana Sangh politician Lal Krishna Advani became the party spokesperson.
The Janata manifesto was released on February 10, which declared that the coming election presented voters with:
| “ | a choice between freedom and slavery; between democracy and dictatorship; between abdicating the power of the people and asserting it; between the Gandhian path and the way that has led many nations down the precipice of dictatorship, instability, military adventure and national ruin. | ” |
As it became clear that Indira's Emergency rule had been widely unpopular, defections from the Congress (R) government increased. The most significant was that of Jagjivan Ram, who commanded great support amongst India's Dalit communities. A former Minister of Defence, Ram left the Congress (R) and along with his supporters formed the Congress for Democracy on February 2, 1977. Other co-founders included the former Chief Minister of Orissa Nandini Satpathy, former Union Minister of State for Finance K. R. Ganesh, former M.P. D. N. Tiwari and Bihar politician Raj Mangal Pandey.
Although committing to contest the election with the Janata party, Ram resisted merging his party organisation with Janata. It was ultimately decided that the Congress for Democracy would contest the election with the same manifesto as the Janata party and would join the Janata party in Parliament, but would otherwise retain a separate identity (the CFD would merge with the Janata party after the elections on May 5). On January 30, 1977 the Communist Party of India (Marxist) announced that it would seek to avoid a splintering in the opposition vote by not running candidates against the Janata party.
Read more about this topic: Janata Party
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