Swatantra Newsletter

Summary

Issue No. 75 (August-September 1970) of the Swatantra Party’s newsletter reports the proceedings of the Party’s Central Parliamentary Board, National Executive and General Council meetings held in Bombay on 20-22 July 1970. Its centrepiece is the response to the All India Congress Committee (Organisation) call of 28 June 1970 for a consolidation of ‘national democratic forces’ against what the Party describes as the threat of communist subversion. Summaries of President Minoo Masani’s opening address, C. Rajagopalachari’s (Rajaji) message and concluding remarks, and Masani’s reply to the political-resolution debate frame the Party’s position that a modern, non-denominational, opposition front must be built to arrest the direction of the Indira Gandhi government.

Alongside speech summaries, the issue prints the text of the unanimously adopted political resolution, reports of the Central Parliamentary Board’s positions on preventive detention, an octroi levy in Calcutta and the move to impeach Justice Shah, National Executive resolutions on the Fundamental Rights campaign and an ‘Anti-Naxalite Day’, a tabled obituary for Sardar Basant Singh, Annexure A (full text of resolutions on West Bengal, Cambodia, cotton and distributive-trade nationalisation, unemployment, land-grab in Bihar, an agricultural wealth tax, steel plants and Chinese-occupied Indian territory), Annexure B (the General Secretary’s organisational report), and a closing guidance sheet for convenors of the newly launched Fundamental Rights Front headed by former Chief Justice Subba Rao.