'Rajiv kept cabinet in dark about 1989 elections'

New Delhi, May 7 : The decision to call the 1989 general elections, which saw the unprecedented Congress strength of 415 in the Lok Sabha slip to 196, was taken by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi without the knowledge of his Cabinet, reveals a new book.

The just-released 'Ayodhya:6 December 1992' by the late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao says the Cabinet did not have a clue to the decision of Rajiv Gandhi and some of his ''close colleagues''.

According to Rao's narration of the events, he came to know about the elections from Rajiv Gandhi, who summoned him to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) a day before the elections were announced.

Rao writes in the book, which he wanted to publish after his death, that Rajiv Gandhi told him about the elections on October 16, 1989 at the PMO.

''I was a pretty prominent member of the CCPA (Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs) but this particular decision seemed to have been made to overffly the CCPA, as I could see,'' Rao says.

When Rao reached PMO at around 0930 hrs after getting an unexpected call that he should go to see the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi was already busy talking to some of his ''close colleagues''.

The ''close colleagues'' have not been identified by Rao, who writes that they were discussing something ''important and urgent''.

''And in a few minutes my suspense ended, in a rather unexpected manner,'' he says, adding Rajiv Gandhi told him that he would deputise for him as head of the Indian delegation at the Commonwealth summit in Kuala Lumpur beginning the next day.

''I am afraid my trip is off. We are announcing the dates of the Lok Sabha election today; they're likely to be around the 20th of next month,'' Rajiv Gandhi told Rao, who was the then External Affairs Minister.

Rao says the words were not exactly a thunderbolt, since the elections were expected in January or February 1990, but November 1989 was ''certainly a date out of blue, whether forced by stars or leaders''.

He goes on to add that from Rajiv Gandhi's tone, it seemed to him that the decision has been taken. ''So we dispensed with any discussion that would involve going over the decision again,'' he writes.

Rao went to the Commonwealth summit where he was slotted ''at the end of the regular Heads, with no chance whatsoever of getting an opportunity to speak on India's behalf'' and the Lok Sabha elections were announced the next day to be held on November 22 and 24, 1989. The Congress lost and Rajiv Gandhi's friend- turned-foe V P Singh was foisted to power with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose strength in the Lok Sabha jumped from 2 to 88 with a lot of help from its Ayodhya campaign.

UNI