PART II

LEADER OF OPPOSITION & MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

PART-II

LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN LOK SABHA

EDITORIAL NOTE

This is the first speech that Y. B. Chavan delivered as Leader of the Opposition. He was then Leader of the Indian National Congress in the Lok Sabha.

Chavan candidly admitted that the result of the General Elections was against the Emergency. His party had accepted a lesson that delegation of powers without adequate checks and controls, either to the political executive or to the bureaucracy, is apt to be abused. The Emergency was an unfortunate situation and Chavan said, “I would like to tell my countrymen and partymen that Emergency was not part of a tradition or ideology of the Congress. Congress has stood for democracy, individual liberty and individual freedom. At the same time Congress had stood for social justice, economic equality and socialism. We have said good bye to it, good bye for ever.”

Giving a word of advice to Janata Party members, he cautioned them not to do injustice to India in order to spite the Congress Party. India was a difficult country to handle. Now that they are in power, they have to take India forward.