MORARJI DESAI QUITS UNION CABINET

NEW DELHI, July 16 (UNI)—The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, resigned from the Union Cabinet this afternoon after the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, in a surprise move, took over from him the Finance portfolio. In taking away the portfolio which he has held since he joined Mrs. Gandhi Cabinet in 1967, the Prime Minister requested him to stay on as the Deputy PM, but he told newsmen later that it would be difficult for him to remain in the Cabinet. “It is a matter of one’s self-respect,” he said. When a correspondent suggested that a reshuffle of the portfolios by the Prime Minister was after all a normal feature, he said: “This is no reshuffling. It only shows she has no confidence in me. She should have talked to me. I have done nothing.” He said her decision did not take him by surprise, as he had learnt “indirectly” on Monday that some such step was being contemplated. The dramatic political developments came after 72 hours of lull following the AICC session at Bangalore, where Mrs. Gandhi scored a single success and suffered a severe reverse.