Got the support of the MPs, filled the form and became the first independent President in the country

Mumbai : The first and probably the last such incident in the country was in 1969, when an independent candidate was elected in the presidential election.. Indira Gandhi herself did this and in doing so she shook her own party i.e. Congress.. Currently the NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu is contesting UPA candidate Yashwant Sinha is against him. Murmu’s victory is considered very easy.. But there was one election in the history of independent India, which was never repeated.. Know the story of 1969 election itself.

This was the beginning of Indira Gandhi’s politics.. Indira Gandhi was made Prime Minister after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966 despite the presence of veterans like Morarji Desai in the Congress Syndicate. Veterans like K Kamaraj, Atulya Ghosh, SK Patil, Neelam Sanjeev Reddy were then in the Congress Syndicate. This further started the match between Congress veterans and Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi gave the biggest shock to secure her position in the 1969 presidential election.

The post of President became vacant due to the untimely death of the then President Zakir Hussain. After the sudden death of the President, there was no provision for who would take over the reins of his office. It was Indira Gandhi who amended the law and the Vice President was given the constitutional right to assume office after the death of the President. There was a provision that if the Vice President was also unavailable, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would become the Acting President.

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By that time the candidate for the post of President was decided here in the Congress. Senior Congress leaders decided on the name Neelam Sanjeev Reddy, which was not acceptable to Indira Gandhi. She remained calm and started the next innings.

Nijalingappa, the then president of the Congress, decided the name of the second one after favoring Indira Gandhi, who was the Prime Minister. But perhaps Nijlingappa did not know how much it would cost him to dance with Pandit Nehru’s daughter going forward. Indira Gandhi was fully aware that her position could be in jeopardy at any time if a senior Congress candidate became the President.

He announced his support to independent candidate VV Giri. All the representatives of the country were urged to vote according to their conscience. VV Giri got support from all over the country. VV Giri got the support of 163 Congress MPs alone and 11 out of 17 states in the Electoral College.

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Left parties, which were already affected by the 10-point programme, supported Indira Gandhi’s own candidate. CD Deshmukh, who has the support of the Sangh, was also in the election fray. Therefore, the opinion of the right wing was divided. In this highly competitive battle, the Congress candidate was defeated by 15,000 votes, while VV Giri became the President.

Congress candidate Neelam Sanjeev Reddy’s defeat came at the expense of seniors. Indira Gandhi was expelled from the party and the 1969 presidential election became one of the most explosive elections in history.

After this election, Indira Gandhi showed her strength and ruled the country until her assassination in 1984. Now, once again the presidential elections are held and the pages of history are turned, but the chapter of 1969 has never been repeated.

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