From the Archives: Mrs. Pandit resigns from Lok Sabha

Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit has resigned her membership of the Lok Sabha. She was returned in the last general election from the Phulpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh, which was represented earlier by Mr. Nehru. In her letter of resignation Mrs. Pandit said she was quitting for personal reasons. While her resignation has come as a surprise people close to her say she was feeling frustrated for quite sometime that she did not get enough opportunity to make her contribution to the Indian political scene through Parliament. She, however, told Pressmen who met her to-day [July 16, New Delhi] that it was not proper to read too much into her resignation. Nor was it right to imagine that she would retire from active politics or public life. She admitted that she was not in tune with the work expected of a member of Parliament and found it more appropriate to work from outside rather than from within. In the last few sessions of Lok Sabha, she had not taken much part in the proceedings though she was highly critical of Government’s policies during the Prime Ministership of Lal Bahadur Shastri.