23/07/2019 - History | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 5 years

KEY POINTS

· According to Kamaraj’s proposal, leaders in government would quit their ministerial offices and take up organisational work, while those in the organisation would join the government.

· In 1963, defeats in three successive by-elections were the immediate provocation for the Congress to worry about its situation.

· The war with China the previous year had wrecked the morale of the leadership. Nehru’s standing as a statesman was in a crisis.

· Kamaraj, proposed to Nehru that he be allowed to quit office to take up organisational work.

· The proposal came up for discussion in the Congress Working Committee, where a large number of members, among them Chief Ministers and Nehru’s Cabinet colleagues, supported it.

· The AICC resolution endorsed the Kamaraj Plan on August 10, 1963.

· The Plan, on the one hand, gave to Prime Minister Nehru an unprecedented opportunity to carry out a massive reshuffle of officeholders, but on the other hand asserted the principle of equal status of the party organisation with the government.

· Kamaraj emphasised the achievement of the Congress goal of socialism without authoritarianism and class conflict.

· His first task was to ensure a smooth transition in the Prime Minister’s Office.

· His next step was to infuse vigour in the party organisation, and thereby, the government. He sought to steer the party towards a federal system of leadership

· Kamaraj also preferred a collective leadership for the party, and saw himself as a consensus-builder.