[Letter to Member of General Council of the Swatantra party]

Summary

In this confidential letter of 15 May 1968, M. R. Masani explains his resignation from the Swatantra Party’s National Executive and Parliamentary Board. He presents the decision as the result of a sustained breakdown in party discipline and democratic functioning, rather than a sudden personal disagreement. The immediate background is the Gujarat party’s handling of the Rajya Sabha candidacy of Babubhai Vaidya, the failure to honour an earlier commitment to support Vaidya, the nomination of U. N. Mahida, and the National Executive’s reluctance to take serious disciplinary action against party members who had opposed the party’s candidate.

Key points

• Masani argues that the Gujarat crisis revealed a breach of faith between the party leadership and its members.
• He criticises the National Executive for tolerating indiscipline, inconsistent decisions, and failures of duty by state leaders.
• He objects to what he sees as a departure from the Swatantra Party’s constitutional commitment to individual freedom within a single national organisation.
• He warns that allowing state units to adopt divergent positions risks the Balkanisation of the party.
• He proposes to remain active outside the National Executive through training programmes, party organisation, parliamentary work, and public advocacy.
• Annexure A restates his resignation as an ethical protest intended to restore the party’s credibility rather than to abandon its principles.
• Annexure B diagnoses the party’s wider weaknesses as stagnation, lack of discipline, and an emerging form of state-unit statism.
• Annexures C and D provide supporting correspondence concerning the Gujarat candidacy dispute and alleged anti-party activity in Rajkot.