After the general elections, an All India Congress Committee (AICC) session was held in June 1967 in New Delhi to examine the reasons behind the Congress’s dwindling electoral fortunes. After evaluating the election results, the finding was that ‘the slow and tardy progress towards the goal of socialism was the cause of the setback’. In this backdrop, Chandra Shekhar and his friends used the opportunity at the AICC session to pressurize the Congress leadership to take up progressive policies and push for drastic action to bring about fundamental, social and economic changes. Chandra Shekhar along with his other Praja Socialist Party (PSP) colleagues drafted the ten-point economic programme. The resolution on the ten-point programme stated that the AICC desired that the process of implementation of the programme towards the attainment of a socialist democratic society be accelerated. Chandra Shekhar and his socialist friends launched a signature campaign in which 118 . . .