Senior freedom fighter, social worker and former Union Minister Dr Mohan Dharia passed away on Monday morning. He was 88. Dharia was a close associate of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and was among the Young Turks of the Congress during the late 60s.
Vice President V V Giri's resignation in 1969 triggered political upheavals that saw the ruling party defy its own presidential nominee, the expulsion of a sitting prime minister by her party president, and a historic split in the Indian National Congress, recounts Utkarsh Mishra.
'Dialogue is the soul of democracy which should not be denied, but it was by Mrs Gandhi,' says Mohan Dharia who resigned as a Union minister in protest against her policies.
'In the world she was being described as a dictator and she wanted to prove she wasn't,' says Mohan Dharia, the former minister who she jailed during the Emergency.
Gandhigiri is a new club founded by former Union minister Mohan Dharia and former Pune Mayors Shantilal Suratwala and Ankush Kakde, alongwith others.
Nitin Gadkari has a message as much for his party as much purportedly it is for the Opposition. Listening to him, whatever be his reasons and motives, will help, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 64-year-old Planning Commission, a vestige of the socialist era, will soon become history.