FORTY YEARS AGO

INDIRA ON JANATA

THE PRIME MINISTER has charged the opposition with indulging in “Hitlerian” techniques to claim that the Congress is going to lose the ensuing elections and asserted “Congress is not losing.” All kinds of rumours, she told a largely attended public meeting at Parade Ground in Chandigarh, were being given currency in an attempt to mislead the masses. Mrs Gandhi pleaded with the people not to be led into believing what her opponents said. She said the elections were important as the people had to decide upon the course they wanted the country to take. Referring to opposition attempts at what she called misleading the people, Mrs Gandhi pointed out that family planning was being made an issue even where there were no complaints. The opposition, she observed, had no programme for the welfare of the majority of the people and it also suffered from ideological contradictions inherent in the constituents that formed the Janata Party.

GEORGE TO FAST

GEORGE FERNANDES, A MISA detenu and Janata Party candidate from the Muzaffarpur constituency in Bihar, plans to go an indefinite hunger strike from March 11 if he is not freed for the remaining duration of the election campaign. He should, at least, be transferred to a prison in his constituency, Fernandes demanded. In a letter to the home minister he said, “While the courts seem disinclined to enlarge me on bail on the plea that there is nothing in law that requires them to do so, you have not also cared to respond to my suggestion that I be transferred to the Muzaffarpur prison so I can keep in touch with my constituents.”

FREE DETENUS

OVER 3,000 WORKERS OF the Loktantrik Yuva Morcha observed token hunger strike at different centres in Delhi in response to Jayaprakash Narayan’s call to obtain the release of political detenus. In Delhi University, a number of students and teachers fasted.