Uttar Pradesh once had a 'one-day' CM - here's why

New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh has always remained the central bed of Indian politics.

Not only for its sheer size, also the significant number of parliamentary seats it holds in its kitty which decide the fate of national elections make it so special.

The state is also a witness to the number of interesting political events. One such is when a popular Congress party leader, now an elected representative to the parliament on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, Jagdambika Pal, served as the chief minister just for a day.

Jagdambika Pal is now famously remembered as “one-day” wonder of Uttar Pradesh politics for becoming controversial chief minister in a high-political drama in 1997.

Ironically, when the then UP governor Romesh Bhandari had made him the chief minister, the victim of the drama then was BJP's Kalyan Singh.

Sequence of events

During 21-22 February 1998, the then governor of UP Romesh Bhandari proposed to implement president's rule in the state as the state assembly witnessed bloody scenes during confidence motion on the floor. Nevertheless, the centre rejected the proposal.

Joyous over the decision, BJP's chief ministerial candidate Kalyan Singh appointed a 93-member cabinet that also included elected representatives from other parties. The other political parties, miffed of this move, tried to destabilise the government.

Singh was dumbstruck when Bhandari declined to recognize the outsiders in his cabinet and dissolved the government overnight.

This provided chance to Jagdambika Pal to constitute his government.

However, the government couldn't run for more than a day. Amid a serious of interesting events, Pal decided to take a back-step and allowed Singh to continue as the chief minister.