The former Jana Sangh in the Janata appears to be anxious to dissociate itself from Mr. Raj Narain’s current campaign against the party chief, Mr. Chandra Shekhar, which some observers think is indirectly aimed at Mr. Morarji Desai himself. Else, Mr. S.S. Bhandari, one of the most important though not so well known members of the group would in all probability not have publicly repudiated most of the points Mr. Raj Narain has been making in his self-proclaimed capacity as deputy leader of the erstwhile BLD. In sum, unlike Mr. Raj Narain, Mr. Bhandari does not share the view that Mr. Chandra Shekhar and his executive have outlived their mandate, that they are now in office illegally because they have failed to organize party elections, that Mr. Chandra Shekhar and some other individuals acted on their own and not on behalf of the parliamentary board in asking the chief ministers of Haryana and UP to seek fresh votes of confidence and that the question of finding a replacement for Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav in Lucknow is closed because he enjoys the support of the majority of the party legislators. Indeed, to leave no room for doubt Mr. Bhandari has said in so many words that there is no permanent alliance between the erstwhile Jana Sangh and BLD, that neither can take the other for granted and that the former does not favour a change at the Centre because it does not regard it possible work out a better set-up. But if he had expected that a statement by him would suffice to persuade Mr. Raj Narain to stop his vituperations against former Congressmen, he has not succeeded.
Mr. Bhandari has been candid enough to acknowledge that the constituents of the Janata continue to function as distinct groups. Indeed, he has not only admitted the existence of an “arrangement” between the Jana Sangh and BLD groups but also explained the division of chief ministerships between them on that basis. But why could the choice of chief minister not be left to the party legislators in each state as some of the leaders advocated last June? Mr. Bhandari has said that the BLD group considered such a plea as being “idealistic” and added “clearly it was inadvisable to allow this (giving a free hand to party legislators) in view of the way the Janata party was formed”. But surely this cannot carry conviction if for no other reason than that Mr. Morarji Desai had not been selected as leader of the Janata parliamentary party earlier in March 1977 as a result of a deal between the group leaders. Moreover, even then there was a strong opinion in the party that the leader should have been elected. Thus if the consensus approach was not good enough at the Centre, how could an “arrangement” between two constituents be expected to produce satisfactory results in the states? As things have turned out, the “arrangement” can be said to mark the beginning of the crisis that haunts the Janata today.