"In 1977 he allied his peasant- and agricultural-based Indian Revolutionary Party with the Janata Party of Morarji Desai and subsequently served as minister of home affairs and deputy prime minister in Desai’s coalition government Factional quarreling broke apart the Janata coalition in 1979, and in July of that year he became prime minister with the support of his former political enemy, Indira Gandhi, who had imprisoned him during the state of emergency of 1975–77. Within a month Gandhi withdrew her support from him, who thenceforth headed a caretaker government until Gandhi was returned to power in the elections of January 1980. He never again held high office."

“He could not check every conductor, but everybody from chaprasi to the Chief Secretary, from constable to IG knew that if he is caught he would not be spared. That is the kind of reputation he got.”

“The first thing our leadership in 1947 should have done was to delegalize all communal bodies. All organizations whose membership was confined to a particular caste or religion should have been disallowed from the political field.”

“Big leaders , said Niccolo Machiavelli, should inspire both love and fear. He had that ability. He was the ‘dictatot’ within the area of his political influence but he also enjoyed a ‘reputation for integrity’”

“...quite a number of Congressmen are disguised as communists. They will go with Mrs Gandhi to the ultimate end. They have always been enemies of democracy. Behind-them is the Right CPI and behind it is Soviet Russia.”

“He withdrew his parliamentary support in the summer of 1979 with the aim of becoming prime minister himself, just as he had become Chief Minister of UP by depriving state governments of legislative majorities...He briefly became caretaker prime minister, supported by Congress as part of his deal with Indira, betraying the millions of UP men and women who had voted to get rid of her and Sanjay.”

“He decided to appear in public a ‘socialist’ by professing to “nationalize” the sugar industry but, in private, he had gone into a deal with sugar barons...The man whom he had appointed as Receiver was cane inspector Man Singh, his own brother! No Chief Minister in UP had ever indulged in this sort of nepotism.”