JAIPUR: Rajasthan Governor Haribhau Bagde has claimed that Article 356 of the Constitution was 'grossly' misused during former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s tenure, leading to the dismissal of 51 state governments in just 11 years.
He made the remarks on the occasion of World Democracy Day at the 28th National Convention of the Indian Youth Parliament in Jaipur.
Claiming that his assertion was based on historical records, Governor Bagde said, “Article 356 was meant to safeguard democracy when a state government failed to function or when governance was against public interest. But instead of using it sparingly, it was misused to dismiss Opposition governments. From 1959 to 1985, several governments were dissolved, and history records that during Indira Gandhi’s tenure, 51 governments were dismissed—almost one every four months.”
The Governor recalled that the first instance of dismissal occurred in Kerala in 1959. "At the request of Indira Gandhi, who was then the Congress president, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru recommended the dismissal to the President, purely because it was an Opposition-led government. This was not about saving the Constitution, but about not following it," Bagde remarked.
He further referred to an incident from Uttar Pradesh, citing a book, where Maulana Azad allegedly lost from the Rampur Assembly constituency. According to him, Prime Minister Nehru warned the then Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant that if Azad lost, his post would also be at risk.
Eventually, despite losing, Azad was declared the winner.
“Democracy does not function like this. Victory and defeat are part of the democratic process, and both must be respected,” the Governor said, adding that those who undermine the process pose a threat to democracy and the Constitution.
Governor Bagde also shared lesser-known accounts from the early years of independent India.
He recounted that in the 1952 general elections, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar lost from Mumbai by 14,000 votes, while 78,000 votes were declared invalid. Ambedkar had raised suspicions of irregularities and demanded an inquiry, but no investigation was carried out.
He further claimed that Jawaharlal Nehru, in a letter to Lady Edwina Mountbatten, had written that although Congress had performed well in Bombay State, “Baba Saheb has been sidelined.”
Notably, the Congress veteran and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has repeatedly accused the BJP of toppling Opposition governments in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Gehlot had alleged that while he was CM in 2020 Union Minister Amit Shah, Dharmendra Pradhan and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat conspired to bring down his government in Rajasthan with the involvement of Congress defectors and had engaged in horse-trading by distributing huge sums of money to MLAs.
The convention is being attended by representatives from 25 States and over 15 international youth observers will deliberate on key national and global issues over the next three days.