Clearly the dissidents in the UP Janata legislature party have decided to take their fight against the Banarsi Das ministry to the floor of the Vidhan Sabha. Else they would not have opposed the interim budget last Monday and gone so far as to indicate their willingness to vote it down. This is perhaps the first time in the history of Indian democracy that dissidents in a ruling party have acted in this manner, which shows not only that reconciliation is for the time being out of the question in the UP JLP but also that the central leadership is not able to impose even the minimum discipline on its legislators in Lucknow. This is in a sense not surprising. For, the Janata party’s central leadership is badly divided on UP, with the two deputy prime ministers firmly ranged behind the ministry. Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mr. LK Advani behind the dissidents even if rather quietly and Mr. Morarji Desai and the party chief, Mr. Chandra Shekhar, standing in between unable to decide what they can and should do to end the conflict in UP. But in another sense this paralysis of the Janata leadership is both surprising and shocking because it should not find it impossible to compose its differences to the point where it can agree to compel the dissidents to confine their fight within the party forums. After all, the dissidents are free to force Mr. Banarsi Das to quit just as they did Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav if and when they become the majority in the JLP. They claim to be in a majority in the Vidhan Sabha wing of the JLP and they may well be. But that is not enough under the party’s constitution which requires them to secure a majority in the entire party before they can press for Mr. Banarsi Das’s resignation. As such they should be willing to wait and if they are not, as they are not, the central leadership should force them to be patient.
The Congress (I) legislators came to the rescue of the ministry. For, it was only when the dissidents discovered to their surprise and dismay that the Congress (I) legislators were reluctant to vote against the interim budget that they decided not to press for a division. The attitude of the Congress (I) is, of course, not surprising. Indeed, what is surprising is that the Janata dissidents should have expected it to behave differently. For, the Congress (I) leadership has made no secret of its approach to the struggle within the Janata party. Mrs. Gandhi regards the RSS-Jana Sangh as her principal opponent in north India; she views with sympathy the efforts inside the ruling party to isolate it and she prefers Mr. Charan Singh to Mr. Desai so much so that she dropped in the recent past several broad hints to the effect that she was prepared to enter into an alliance with him if he was to quit the Janata. Thus it is only natural that she should wish to support a chief minister who has the backing of Mr. Charan Singh and has deliberately excluded the Jana Sangh from his cabinet. It would have been a different matter if she preferred presidential rule in UP or if she was prepared for a mid-term poll. But this does not appear to be the case.
The Times of India, 15 March 1979