Mainstream WeeklyFrom N.C.’s Writings
The prospect of a new configuration inside the Janata Pary has been advanced by the dramatic developments in UP. It is not just a change of incumbent for the post of Chief Minister that took place with Banarsi Das taking over from Ram Naresh Yadav, but an entirely new scenario for Indian politics with possibi-lities which only the blind can ignore.
Soon after the Janata came to power in 1977, the key development within it was the axis formed between the Jana Sangh and Charan Singh’s BLD. This enabled both these Janata components to corner the major share of seats and offices in the Janata-ruled State governments and establish a strange hegemony over the entire spectrum of Janata activity. Of the two, the Jana Sangh is obviously the more well-knit, the more determined and clearer in its pers-pective with definite ideas of its own brand of strategy and tactics; in contrast, Charan Singh found his BLD to be rather ramshackle with freelance leaders like Biju Patnaik and H.M. Patel, whom he could hardly expect to discipline.
The crisis in this inner alliance came last year with the widening rift between Morarji Desai and Charan Singh. The Jana Sangh could no longer be taken for granted by the BLD leadership: it chose not to follow Charan Singh into hibernation, however temporary, because it wanted, as it has always done