NEW DELHI, India -- Former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, less than a day after being sacked from the Cabinet, Thursday called Prime Minister V.P. Singh 'spineless' and said he was fired because he 'consistently championed' the plight of the rural poor.
Singh dropped Lal in a surprise move Wednesday night in a bid to resolve a political crisis that has dogged his 8-month-old National Front government for two weeks. President R. Venkataraman announced Lal's removal from the Cabinet.
'The president, on the advice of the prime minister, is pleased to order, with immediate effect, the removal of Mr. Devi Lal, deputy prime minister and minister for agriculture, from the union Council of Ministers,' the president said in a statement.
The Times of India newspaper said Thursday that Singh acted quickly to dismiss Lal after receiving a letter in which the deputy premier acknowledged criticizing several Cabinet colleagues in an interview with an Indian news magazine.
Lal also had been involved in circulating a forged letter in Singh's name containing allegations against Commerce Secretary Arun Nehru, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty that has ruled India almost continuously since independence.
The letter reportedly charged that Nehru was implicated in the 1987 Bofors scandal, in which the Swedish arms maker allegedly gave millions of dollars in payoffs to middlemen and high-ranking government officials to secure a $1.3 billion weapons contract.
Singh notified Lal of his dismissal in a letter delivered to the deputy premier's home.
'For these acts of yours, of violation of all canons of collective responsibility of the Cabinet, I have recommended to the president of India to drop you from the Council of Ministers,' Singh said in the letter.
Reacting Thursday to his dismissal, the 76-year-old Lal denied he had called Singh 'spineless' during an interview with the Illustrated Weekly of India news magazine.
'I do not know the meaning of the word 'spineless.' I was not educated in Oxford. What I said in my own language was that the prime minister is a weak person,' Lal said. But he added, 'This action has proved that Mr. V.P. Singh is actually spineless.'
Lal, a Janata Dal power-broker, charged that he was dismissed for championing the cause of his rural constituency and hinted he would use a farmers' rally next week in New Delhi to demonstrate the strength of his political base.
'I am paying the price for having consistently championed the cause of ... the rural masses,' Lal told reporters at a news conference. 'This is a fight between the poor people in the villages and those living in the cities.'
Janata Dal President S.R. Bommai agreed with the prime minister's decision to dismiss Lal, a party spokesman said. The spokesman told the Press Trust of India that Singh held 'detailed discussions' with Bommai before firing the deputy premier.
The National Front government is a five-party minority coalition that rules with the support in Parliament of the Hindu-chauvinist Bhartiya Janata Party and India's two communist parties.
Nehru told the agency Singh's decision upheld the principle of the collective responsibility of the Cabinet.
'On a personal level, one can only react in sorrow,' Nehru said. 'But it is important for party and government that the principle of collective responsibility is greater than individual need.'
The prime minister's decision to fire the deputy premier came just two weeks after political maneuvering by Lal and his son, Om Prakash Chautala, triggered a crisis that prompted Singh to offer his resignation.
The incident that caused the crisis was the election of Chautala as the chief minister of the Haryana state government. Lal was seen as having engineered the election of his son. Singh was criticized for failing to take steps against the political power play.
The crisis ended when supporters of the National Front government rallied around Singh and officials pressured Chautala into resigning.
