The Swearing in Stories

Recalling the Nation's notable swearing-in ceremonies

The Walk out
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Yashwant Sinha may be the only one to walk out from a swearing-in ceremony. And the reason was that he felt he was eligible for a Cabinet berth in the V P Singh government in 1989. Sinha, then a Janata Dal leader, had reached the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the swearing-in ceremony and his name was in the list of Council of Ministers to be sworn in. But there was an anti-climax. Sinha found that his name was in the list of Ministers of State. He felt snubbed and stormed out of the Rashtrapati Bhavan without attending the ceremony. Later when Singh's government fell and Chandra Sekhar formed the government, Sinha's dream came true. He was inducted as Finance Minister.

Sinha recalled the episode in his memoir Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: As General Secretary of the Janata Dal, its main spokesperson, in-charge of its central office and its chief campaign manager, I played a very important role in the victory of the party in the elections of 1989. Unfortunately, while most of my colleagues who worked alongside me were appointed as Cabinet Ministers by V P Singh, he decided to offer me the post of a state (junior) Minister. This was a deliberate snub to Chandra Shekhar and his followers in the party. The offer was not acceptable to me and I walked away from the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Controversial Oath
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This was one oath that even reached the doorsteps of the Supreme Court. Devi Lal was declared the Deputy Prime Minister under V P Singh but the Third Schedule of Article 75(4) of the Constitution did not provide for a specific oath for such a post. Then President R Venkataraman asked his Secretary to convey to Singh that Devi Lal could be sworn in as a minister and designated later as Deputy Prime Minister. But at the swearing-in ceremony, Devi Lal said 'upa pradhan matri' instead of 'mantri' as read out by the President. The President later recalled that he "did not want to create an ugly scene and therefore allowed Devi Lal to proceed as he wished".

But it did not end there as one K M Sharma approached the Supreme Court saying the oath administered to Devi Lal was not the one in accordance with the prescription of the Constitution. The government argued that the description of Deputy Prime Minister was descriptive and for all purposes, he was a Minister. The oath prescribed in the Constitution is only for a Minister of the Union, and that there was no separate form even for the Prime Minister, it argued. Then Chief Justice M Ranganatha Mishra ruled in favour of Devi Lal.

The Sulking Leaders
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R L Jalappa came to Rashtrapati Bhavan with the hope that he will be sworn in as Cabinet Minister in Deve Gowda Ministry but he learned there only that he was just a Minister of State. He did not walk out but took oath as Minister of State and returned to his seat. The political folklore is that Jalappa wrote his resignation on the other side of the paper in which his oath was typed. Gowda, however, managed to cool down Jalappa later who took over the responsibilities of Textile Ministry.

Just before the Jalapa episode in 1996, Sikander Bhakt took oath as Cabinet Minister under A B Vajpayee government and was alloted Ministry of Urban Affairs. Then the prominent Muslim face in BJP, Bhakt was upset and he was later given additional responsibilities of Ministry of External Affairs. But the irony was that he could be in the post only for about a week as the Vajpayee government fell in 13 days.

Forgetful Ministers
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Wearing colourful headgear, Ramdas Athavale walked to take oath in 2016. Then President Pranab Mukherjee was ready to administer oath and Athawale started but forgot to say his name. He started reading out the oath of office and secrecy and the President intervened, "apna naam boliye (speakout your name)". For a second, Athawale did not understand and suddenly said, "sorry, sorry" and finished his oath-taking.

In 2017, it was the turn of Dharmendra Pradhan. When Pradhan made a mistake in pronouncing two words while taking oath in Hindi, Kovind made it a point to insist that the minister, whose mother tongue is Odiya, get it right. At least twice, Pradhan got it wrong. When he was Bihar Governor, he had made RJD chief Lalu Yadav's son Tej Pratap to repeat the oath after he misread a Hindi word for 'expected' during the swearing-in ceremony.