Within a week of the Beirut blast, which killed nearly 200 and wounded over 600 people, the Lebanon government stepped down. Prime Minister Hassan Diab said the blast was a “disaster beyond measure” and announced his resignation.
Lebanon was already in the midst of its worst economic crisis in decades and struggling with rising coronavirus cases, even as the government was plagued by accusations of corruption and gross mismanagement. The blast turned out to be the last straw.
Political resignations are all about accountability at the highest levels of governance. Decisions to step down are taken either to take the moral high ground or use as a strategy to push rivals on the backfoot.
Even India has seen politicians stepping down on moral grounds after some disaster or the other. Here’s their story:
Following another railway accident in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu, three months later, when 144 were killed, Shastri submitted his resignation and pleaded for ‘early acceptance,’ writes his biographer Sandeep Shastri.
According to his fellow Parliamentarians, Shastri was not responsible for the accident which was caused by a technical failure and was thus the responsibility of the Railway Board. But despite efforts by Nehru and his fellow-MPs to dissuade Shastri, the latter was adamant and had his way.
A few months prior to his resignation, Singh had authorised his officials to hire a private American detective agency, the Fairfax Group, which discovered that wealthy Indians had stashed their black money in foreign banks operating across different tax havens. By coincidence or design, Fairfax went after Prime Minister Gandhi’s friends and acquaintances as well.
After getting a lot of stick from his party colleagues, VP Singh tore apart Gandhi’s claim of no middlemen in defence deals concerning the Indian government and that if any arms supplier hired one, he would be disqualified from the bidding process. Based on a secret telegram he received from the Indian ambassador in then West Germany, VP Singh found out that “that an agent was paid a commission for the purchase of two submarines from HDW,” writes veteran reporter Inder Malhotra. Singh ordered an inquiry, and before Rajiv Gandhi could react, newspapers reported the story following morning. Singh eventually resigned and was soon expelled from the party.
According to a New York Times report, over the next few months the public-sector Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) had bought 1.24 crore, or 12.4 million rupees, worth of fraudulent stocks in six companies owned by Haridas Mundhra, a Calcutta-based businessman. The investment was the largest that LIC had made in its short history, but contrary to regulations, its investment committee had not been consulted on the decision.
According to veteran business reporter Sucheta Dalal, there was evidence that Mundhra was bleeding the companies and siphoning off large chunks of money, while simultaneously operating in the market and rigging prices as cover to his own sales of these scripts.
The New York Times report further stated ostensibly, the shares were purchased by LIC to stabilize the market; in reality, they had the effect of bailing out a suspect businessman, and the puzzling order to do so seemed to have come from within the highest reaches of government.
An inquiry was ordered by Prime Minister Nehru, which was headed by former chief justice MC Chagla. He submitted his report in less than a month. The hearings of the Chagla commission were held in public with massive crowds attending. When Chagla submitted his report, Krishnamachari resigned on February 18, 1958, even though the commission had said nothing about his personal complicity.
As India’s representative to the United Nations, he almost facilitated the opening of diplomatic channels between China and the United States, played a role in bringing the Korean War to an end and was deeply involved in the resolution of the crisis emanating from the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. As Defence Minister, he played a critical role in the annexation of Goa from Portuguese colonialists in 1961, and admonished any criticism by Western powers for India’s actions as “vestige(s) of Western Imperialism”.
However, his downfall came the following year after the India-China War. Following a crushing defeat at the hands of China, Menon came in for sharp criticism from within and outside Parliament for his ineffectiveness and poor handling of India’s military preparedness. He eventually tendered multiple resignations, the last of which was sent to Prime Minister Nehru on November 7, 1962.
“Keshav Dev Malviya had done much, as Minister in the central Government, to develop oil prospecting in India without allowing foreign companies to dominate the field. Now it became known that he had requested a private firm to assist a Congress candidate in the elections. The sum involved was relatively small and Nehru believed that the firm had derived no kind of benefit, direct or indirect, in return for such assistance. But the issue could not be shirked,” writes Sarvepalli Gopal in ‘Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography’.
Nehru asked a Supreme Court judge to conduct a private inquiry, which found some substance to the allegations against Malviya, who resigned. “So, Nehru, acting solely on his own, took the right step of reluctantly accepting Malviya’s resignation; but he was unhappy about it for he was convinced of Malviya’s honesty and probity,” adds Gopal.
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