Sitaram Kesri
Sitaram Kesri (* November 1919 in Danapur, Patna, Bihar, † 24 October 2000 in Delhi ) was an Indian politician of the Indian National Congress ( INC), which he was president from 1996 to 1998.
Biography
MP and Minister
Kesri worked as a social worker after attending school in his native town and entered an age of 13 in 1932, the national movement. He took an active member in 1942 in the Quit India movement of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in part and therefore was arrested several times.
In the elections of 1967 he was elected a deputy of the lower house ( Lok Sabha ) and this was during the 4th legislative period 1967-1971 as a representative for the constituency of Katihar. Subsequently, he was in July 1971 a member of the upper house ( Rajya Sabha ) and represented in this after his re- election in April 1974 and July 1980 to July 1986 the state of Bihar. In addition, he was President of INC in 1973 in the state of Bihar.
In 1980 he was also elected treasurer of the Indian National Congress and held this office for 16 years under the party president Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao to 1996. During this time he was also repeatedly Minister, as the party leader Prime Minister of India were, as as Minister of parliamentary Affairs and in 1993 as a welfare minister. During this time a major report on people with disabilities emerged.
In April 1988, Kesri was again a member of the Rajya Sabha and represented there by a re-election to the state of Bihar until April 2000.
President of the Congress Party
After the forced resignation of P.V. Narasimha Rao as party president Kesri was in September 1996, his successor, and remained in this position until his replacement by Sonia Gandhi in March 1998. On January 3, 1997, he was officially President of INC.
His term as party president was marked by the lack of support among the party's base and led to a further split within the INC. The controversial situation arose when he withdrew his support for the HD Deve Gowda government of Prime Minister and this led to the overthrow of the Government of the United Front in April 1997. Nevertheless, it came shortly after a compromise with the election of the candidate of Janata Dal, Inder Kumar Gujral, the prime minister, who in turn received the support of the Congress Party.
In June 1997, he was elected President of the INC and was able to prevail against his two rival candidates Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot.
In the first week of November 1997 published parts of the Jain Commission report on the investigation of the Verschörungsvorwürfe in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in the press. It was reported that the Jain Commission Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam party (DMK) relations involved in the assassination of Gandhi's organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) accused. The DMK was part of the coalition government of the United Front and presented three cabinet ministers Gujral. The Congress party demanded that the dismissal of three ministers, then held an exchange of letters between Kesri and Prime Minister Gujral between 20 November and 28 November 1997. Ultimately rejected by the Prime Minister from the dismissal of the minister, so that the INC finally on 28 November 1997, the government withdrew its support Gujral. As the debate was no formation of a viable government concluded, the Lok Sabha was dissolved and thus opens the way for early elections.
However, the Congress party was not fully prepared for this early elections, so that several leaders of the INC as Rangarajan Kumaramangalam and Aslam Sherkhan publicly expressed their displeasure to guide Kesris and leaked from the Congress Party. Shortly thereafter, Sonia Gandhi instead Kesris top candidate for the forthcoming election campaign. Although they attracted large crowds on their campaign events, Sonia Gandhi, however, could not win the elections. In marked by numerous bombings elections INC reached only 140 of the 552 parliamentary seats.
After the election defeat Kesri was voted out in March 1998 by the Working Committee of the Congress Party as the party president Sonia Gandhi and appointed instead to the party president. Due to the many years of service, however, Gandhi appointed him a member of the working committee of the party for life.
However, it came on 19 May 1999 to a further conflict was recorded as Kesri with other members of the Working Committee of the party headquarters after a further Spoaltung the INC and the founding of the Nationalist Congress Party by Sharad Pawar, Purno Agitok Sangma and Tariq Anwar had come. After this incident, Kesri played no prominent political role more and he was ultimately not nominated again as the candidate of INC in elections to the Rajya Sabha in April 2000.