February 1952 from Faizabad against Lallanji, UP, as KMPP candidate, but won a bye-election as PSP candidate from Bhagalpur), 1957 (from Sitamarhi, Bihar as PSP candidate), 1963, and 1967 (by-poll in Guna in MP as Swatantra Party candidate). His wife since 1938, Sucheta Kripalani, briefly joined KMPP founded by him in 1951, but later returned to Congress, and went from strength to strength in the Congress Party, with several Central ministries; she was also the first female Chief Minister, in Uttar Pradesh. When Congress split in 1969, Sucheta Kripalani became part of Congress (Org), led by Nijalingappa and Morarji Desai. The Kripalanis were frequently at loggerheads in Parliament. One matter they agreed on was the undesirability of vast parts of the Hindu Marriage Act, particularly the controversial 'Restitution of Conjugal Rights' clause. By this clause, a partner who had survived an unsuccessful filing for divorce could move the courts to return to the status quo ante in terms of conjugal interaction. Kripalani, horrified, made one of his most memorable speeches, saying "this provision is physically undesirable, morally unwanted and aesthetically disgusting." Kripalani was also concerned with the privilege of parliament over the press. During Nehru's premiership, the Lok Sabha called the Chief Editor of the weekly Blitz, the well-known Russi Karanjia to the bar and admonished him for "denigration and defamation of a member of parliament" for calling Kripalani, "Cripple-loony". This was despite Karanjia's closeness to and Kripalani's estrangement from, Nehru. Kripalani moved the first-ever No confidence motion on the floor of the Lok Sabha in August 1963, immediately after the disastrous India-China War. Later life Kripalani remained a critic of Nehru's policies and administration while working for social and environmental causes. While remaining active in electoral politics, Kripalani gradually became more of a spiritual leader of the socialists than anything else; in particular, he was generally considered to be, along with Vinoba Bhave, the leader of what remained of the Gandhian faction. He was active, along with Bhave, in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s. In 1972-3, he agitated against the increasingly authoritarian rule of Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India. Kripalani and Jayaprakash Narayan felt that Gandhi's rule had become dictatorial and anti-democratic. Her conviction on charges of using government machinery for her election campaign galvanised her political opposition and public disenchantment against her policies. Along with Jayaprakash Narayan, Kripalani toured the country urging