The Janata Party – the first non-Congress government in Delhi since the Independence of India in 1947 – split in July 1979. In hindsight, this breakup was inevitable. The key participants had little experience of running a coalition of disparate political parties with long standing organisational structures, varying political and personal interests, and ideologies that ranged from Socialist to Hindu partisan. Despite the front of a united and single party, it was hidden to none that the Janata remained a coalition of multiple factions, with none willing to merge their separate identities into a common body.

After the breakup of the Janata government, Charan Singh became the fifth Prime Minister of India on 28 July 1979 as head of a disparate coalition that was to be short-lived. His government was supported (‘unconditionally’) from outside by the Indira Congress which withdrew its support within weeks once Charan Singh refused to compromise on withdrawing criminal cases against Sanjay Gandhi instituted in the courts for his excesses of the Emergency. Charan Singh refusal led him to resign on principle without facing Parliament. He was asked by President Sanjeeva Reddy to stay on as care-taker Prime Minister till the mid-term election results were announced on 14 January 1980.