Nothing concentrates a politician’s mind as well as an impending election. It helps remove the cobwebs in the form of principles, previous commitments and loyalties and focus attention on his most basic need, the need to survive. In conformity with this law (of the jungle, if you will), a number of leaders (belonging to the Congress (U) have deserted what they regard as a sinking ship and sought cover under Mrs. Gandhi’s umbrella – Mr. Brahmananda Reddi, Mr. Vasantrao Patil and Mr. Sukhadia. Mr. Chandrajit Yadav has acted in obedience to the same instinct. Only he is seeking shelter in a different haven. It is possible that his reservations against Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Sanjay Gandhi are stronger than those of many of her former detractors. But that may not necessarily be the main reason why he has decided to join the Lok Dal. His decision can be explained in less exalted terms. For he might well have calculated that Mr. Charan Singh has considerable hold among his Yadav castle and that he can secure its whole-hearted support only if he casts his lot completely with the caretaker Prime Minister. An alliance, he could have felt, is a shaky business.
But whatever Mr. Yadav’s calculations and compulsions, his departure is another nail in the coffin of the Congress (U). The organisation is not dead. The forthcoming elections, too, may not kill it. But it has been dying as it were limb by limb ever since the split in the parent organisation in January 1978. The elections to the vidhan sabhas in Karnataka, Andhra, Maharashtra and some other states a month later in February 1978 exposed the hollowness of its claim to be the true inheritor of the original Indian National Congress and showed beyond a shadow of doubt that its popular base was very limited indeed. A series of by-elections in different parts of the country subsequently underscored the same fact again and again. It won one by-election in Rajasthan and its nominees lost their deposits in many other constituencies in various states. The organisation got a transfusion of blood when Mr. Devraj Urs broke away from the Congress (I) and joined it, later to head it. But instead of acting like the convalescent that it was and therefore buying time, it rushed into headlong action last summer when it moved a no-confidence motion against Mr. Morarji Desai and thereby unwittingly set in motion forces it could not possibly hope to control. It has since acted as if it has been possessed by an irresistible desire to destroy itself. Since it had become a prisoner of its own slogans – it had committed itself to fight both “authoritarianism” (Mrs. Gandhi) and “communalism” (the Janata) – it is understandable that it should have entered into an alliance with the Lok Dal for forming the government in New Delhi. But it passes comprehension that it should have endorsed Mr. Charan Singh’s call for dissolution of the Lok Sabha and refused to support Mr. Jagjivan Ram’s claim to head the next government. Since its leaders could not have been unaware of the consequences of early elections in view of Mrs. Gandhi’s popularity and the availability of the RSS cadres to the Janata, the inference is unavoidable that they were determined to commit political suicide.
The Times of India, 6 December 1979