So finally Mrs. Maneka Gandhi has put her cards on the table. She has announced her decision to form a new political party by October 15. This should put an end to the sedulously propagated myth that she has had no political ambitions, that, apart from her love for animals, her main desire has been to propagate the ideals of her late husband, and that her clash with Mrs. Indira Gandhi leading to her exit from the Prime Minister’s house fell in the usual mother-in-law-daughter-in-law category. Indeed, her statement on Wednesday establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the formation of the Sanjay Vichar Manch earlier this year was a deliberate political act, that Maneka’s decision to address its first convention in Lucknow on March 20 amounted to raising the banner of revolt against Mrs. Gandhi, and that, in the circumstances, the Prime Minister was left with little choice but to recognise that a parting of the ways between her and her daughter-in-law had become unavoidable. Perhaps Maneka’s departure from 1-Safdarjung Road, New Delhi, could have been arranged with greater dignity. But one cannot be too sure in such matters. And, in any case, this is no longer a major issue.
Maneka has also dropped the pretence that she has no quarrel with Mrs. Gandhi’s leadership of the government and the Congress (I). In fact, she has made it clear that the Prime Minister is to be the principal target of her political activities. Congressmen are, she has said, thoroughly dissatisfied with the “non-functioning of the government” headed by Mrs. Gandhi. She has also charged that “all power is concentrated in one house, in a group of three or four people”. The house in question is clearly Mrs. Gandhi’s and the “three or four people” could not be exercising the kind of power Maneka says they are unless the Prime Minister was willing at least to acquiesce in it. The fight is thus in the open, which is as well. A political battle, even if it is the result of nothing grander or nobler than a clash of ambitions or personalities, should be fought as a political battle.
Maneka has begun rather badly. One of the two MPs she claimed had joined her has denied having done so. For all that we know the second one, too, may find discretion the better part of valour and stay on where he is – in the Congress (1). That would suggest that Maneka has taken up a very difficult task which may well prove beyond her capacity, as it has for many much more experienced and shrewd men and women. Mrs. Gandhi remains a formidable figure and it is not easy to challenge her either in the country or in the Congress (I). But however dismal her prospects and however ill-qualified and inadequate she herself may be for the leadership role, Maneka has as much right to try and form a party as anyone else. This should be beyond dispute.