August 12, 1981, Forty Years Ago: More Rain Woes

Madhu Limaye’s claims of a Lok Dal-Janata-Congress (U) consensus on merger into a united party was challenged by the members of Congress (U) and Janata Party. Though the Lok Dal president Charan Singh refused to comment on the subject, a section of his party was unhappy over what some of the party leaders described as “premature publicity to the merger plan”. Janata Party President Chandrashekar said Limaye had “given a distorted picture and that did not serve the cause of Opposition unity”. Congress (U) general secretary K P Unnikrishnan was more forthright in denial.

IMF Loan Sought

Finance Minister R Venkataraman said in a radio interview that there was no need to be apprehensive about taking a big loan from the IMF. He said the “government will certainly not do anything derogatory to its self-respect and India has a very high reputation internationally as a borrower”. He said the Government was negotiating for 5 billion SDRs (special drawing rights), a loan of Rs 5,000 crores.