Charan Singh is expected to join the Cabinet as deputy prime minister with the portfolio of finance while H M Patel will become the home minister. Rabi Ray, the Janata general secretary, may take the place of Raj Narain. Of the four ministers of state who had resigned in protest against Charan Singh’s exit from the government, three will come back. The fourth, Janeshwar Mishra, has declined to return because of his close association with Raj Narain.
Raj Narain’s fight
Raj Narain confirmed that Charan Singh would rejoin the Desai Cabinet but declared that the war against Prime Minister Morarji Desai would continue. “Charan Singh will fight from within and I will fight from outside,” he said. Singh’s principal lieutenant said that his joining the Cabinet without Narain’s own induction was not a betrayal.
Bihar undertrials
Kanta Hingorani, an advocate, filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court on behalf of 18 undertrials in Patna and Muzaffarpur jails in Bihar, who have already been in jail for periods out of all proportion to the gravity of their alleged offences without being proved guilty by any court. The judges issued notice to the State of Bihar and asked for a report with regard to the undertrials within two weeks. The petition was filed on the basis of two articles by K P Rustamji, member of the National Police Commission, published by The Indian Express on January 8 and 9, disclosing the extent of injustice and suffering of these undertrials.
Arafat’s bodyguard
A bomb explosion in a car in Beirut killed five persons and seriously wounded Yasser Arafat’s top security officer, the reputed mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. The security chief, Ali Salameh, 36, code-named “Abu Hassan”, was in an “almost hopeless condition”, Palestinian sources said.
