BIG PARADE FOR MENON

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29764, 6 March 1962, Page 13

BIG PARADE FOR MENON

Mass Support Demonstrated INZ Press Assn.—Copyright) BOMBAY, March 5. The Indian Defence Minister, Mr V. K. Krishna Menon, was given a massive elections victory parade in Bombay yesterday by a jubilant crowd of 100,000 Six processions with lorries carrying Menon's portraits and surrounded by sloganshouting admirers, converged on a central rallying point. At the head of the processions, said the Associated Press, were stars of the film colony in Bombay—lndia’s Hollywood. Apart from those for Gandhi and Nehru it was the biggest demonstration of support for one man that India has ever seen.

Observers said the very vehemence of the campaign against Menon had provided him with a mass following. At a rally earlier, Mr Menon declared that the fundamentals of India's national policy were “socialism at home and peace abroad.”

Mr Menon declared: "My duty is to my Government, to my country, and to my self-respect—and not to foreign governments. "I held on to North Bombay, and North Bombay held on to me,” he asserted to thunderous applause.