It was eloquently argued that the Independents had defeated the Congress. I am not prepared to accept that because it was not the Congress alone that the Independents defeated; it was the Swatantra and Jan Sangh as well. They had defeated other political parties also, not the Congress alone. Therefore, one cannot morally claim that the Independents should sit with the anti-Congress group. They certainly represent their people. In the election results, they had defeated all the political parties in the State. Therefore, one cannot say that they had a natural political claim to sit only against the Congress. Naturally, they had to be treated as individuals, to that extent representatives of their people who elected them. Certainly it is their right.

The position after the election was that one party had 89 members and the other group of parties had a total strength of 80. Then there were these Independents. That was the picture presented to the Governor. He had to make up his mind. Naturally, the Governor called the other leaders. He had discussions with them. He had discussions with the Congress leaders. Possibly he tried to have information about the other people also. In the statement that he has made - I am only making use of the statement that he has made at the press conference that he held on the 4th March ...

... I was referring to the press conference that the Governor held on the 4th in which he has explained his approach to the problem. Here we must see in what position the Governor was, what his constitutional right was and in what way he was exercising it. It is much better that we consider this very delicate constitutional issue. One should not merely look at it from the party Point of view. I would certainly like to assure this hon. House that this Government has looked at this question not from the party point of view at all, but only from the point of view of constitutional propriety. I will explain how we have done that.

Here the Governor was exercising his individual judgement. This is the only occasion he could do so. Otherwise, in other cases, in the normal functioning, he has to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers. But here one Government was out; the other government was in the process of coming into existence. It was the process of the birth of a new government on the basis of the election result. He has expressed his view that it was very difficult for him to accept the Independents as a reliable factor in calculating the strength of the government.

Shri N. C. Chatterjee : May I ask if the Independent Members had not sent their consent in writing, that they are going to join the Samyukta Dal, the Opposition bloc?

Shri Y. B. Chavan : That is exactly what I am coming to. In his press conference, he had mentioned about the flexible loyalties of these members because he found that one name was mentioned on this side as well as on the other side. In view of these claims and counter-claims about the Independents, who were supposed to be representatives of the people, it was difficult for the Governor to go by their number in this particular matter.