1971-06-15
By Reuters
Background: Beset by financial difficulties imposed by the influx of more than five million refugees, Mrs. Indira Gandhi's ruling Congress Party is now faced with an additional financial crisis.
The opposition Jan Sangh party is taking an active role in organizing demonstrations against the new national budget which they call "anti-People" in nature. The Jan Sangh predicts the budget will drive the cost of living up by 10 per cent.
Almost one thousand Jan Sangh supporters were arrested when they attempted to march on Parliament, Monday (June 14), in New Delhi. More than 8,000 had gathered before the march at a nearby boat club to hear the president of the party, A. B. Vajpaylee, urge them to court arrest in defiance of a government regulation prohibiting a demonstration at Parliament House.
It took fifteen-hundred police to keep the demonstrators away from Parliament when they marched from the boat club in the early afternoon.
SYNOPSIS: More than eight thousand supporters of India's Jan Sangh party and its anti-government president A.B. Vajpaylee gathered in this New Delhi boat club on Monday (June 14) to protest the new government budget.
Saying that the budget would raise the cost of living by ten per cent in one year, Vajpaylee exhorted his followers to court arrest.... A protest against a government regulation prohibiting demonstrations at Parliament House. Fifteen-hundred police were on hand to see the regulation enforces.
The confrontation wasn't long in coming. A thousand members of the Jan Sangh wearing saffron coloured arm bands were designated by the party to be in the forefront of those to be arrested.....almost all were accommodated. Rising discontent over loss of jobs, inflationary prices, a restrictive budget and the East Pakistan refugee problem leaves Mrs. Gandhi and her Congress Party in a financial dilemma with international overtones.