The HN Bahuguna Centenary Celebrations Committee and several other organisations, which met here on Thursday to celebrate the birth centenary of the leader, have appealed to the central government to posthumously confer the highest civil award, Bharat Ratna, on him for his illustrious services to the nation.
These organisations also demanded installation of a life-size statue of “one of the tallest secular leaders of India” in the premises of the National Parliament here.
The centenary celebrations, which began on 25th of April 2018, concluded on Thursday.
The speakers in the Thursday meeting in New Delhi said the political thoughts of late Bahuguna — based on social equity including gender justice, participatory democracy and respect for diversity — were most relevant in the present political situation in the country.
“It was his idea of inclusion of the marginalised communities in the mainstream political discourse of India. Also, it was his idea to bring the dalits, the minorities, the working classes and the peasants together and found a party — Dalit Mazdoor Kisan Party,” said Dr Idrees Quereshi, vice-president of the All-India Muslim Education Society.
“We, the Bahugunaites, have the responsibility of propagating his thoughts and work towards translating them into action,” said Mr Dhirendra Pratap, an ex-minister in the Uttarakhand Government led by ND Tiwari.
Others, who were present in the meeting, included: Suresh Nautiyal, president of the India Greens Party; Sunil Negi, president of the Uttarakhand Journalists Forum; Vinod Nautiyal, president of the Rashtriya Uttarakhand Sabha; Pratap Singh Shahi, vice-president of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, Shiv Prasad Gaur, president of the Uttarakhand Chintan; Supreme Court of India advocate ZK Faizan; Chaudhary Ajeet Singh, president of the Janata Sangharsh Morcha; and the activists like Dr Iftikhar Ahmed, Pyare Mian and Dr Manmohan Shah.
Late HN Bahuguna was born in a nondescript village of Garhwal on 25th of April 1919. In 1973, he was appointed as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India. However, his tenure was short and he was forced to resign by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
In early 1977, when Indira Gandhi lifted the State of Emergency and called for new elections to the Lok Sabha, Bahuguna left the ruling Congress party of Indira and formed a new party called Congress for Democracy (CFD) with Jagjivan Ram and Nandini Satpathy. The CFD joined the Janata alliance to contest the elections. After the victory of the Janata alliance, Bahuguna joined the cabinet as Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers.
In 1979, he became the Finance Minister under the short lived Charan Singh Government.
In the January 1980 Parliamentary elections, he won from Garhwal as Indira Gandhi’s Congress (I) party candidate; but, soon left the party and resigned his seat subsequently. He won the by-election for the seat in 1982. In 1984, he contested against the Congress candidate, Amitabh Bachchan, from Allahabad constituency and lost.
“Despite his ups and downs, he left an indelible mark on the India politics and would be remembered for long,” concluded Mr Sunil Negi, president of the Uttarakhand Journalists Forum.
