The Karnal by-elections to the Lok Sabha has more or less settled three inter-related issues. It has confirmed that there has been a dramatic decline in the popularity of the Janata, that Mrs. Gandhi’s pull with the people is by no means limited to South India where only recently she won spectacular victories in the Vidhan Sabha poll and that the official Congress does not amount to much in the north either. None of these points need have been in dispute for months. But there is nothing like concrete evidence in such matters. Karnal has provided it. While some Janata leaders and supporters may seek comfort in the fact that they have held the seat, the others may suggest that special local factors like the sharp drop in the price of sugarcane and the death of four Nihangis in a police firing last January have been helpful to the Congress(I) candidate. But the drop in the size of the Janata’s majority from over 2,76,000 votes in March 1977 to about 18,000 now is too big to be explained away so easily. And the local factors in question notwithstanding, Mrs. Gandhi and her party could not have relished the idea of having their strength in north India tested first after the elections in Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra in a Haryana constituency. After all, the united Congress had secured only 17.93 per cent of the votes polled in the March 1977 Lok Sabha election and 17.35 in the Vidhan Sabha in last June in the State as a whole and the forcible family planning drive had provoked considerable resistance in the Karnal constituency.
It is difficult to say whether Mr. Piloo Mody as the Janata nominee would have fared better than Mr. Mohinder Singh Lather whom the party leadership had finally chosen at the state chief minister’s insistence. If, by virtue of his not belonging to any caste, he could have attracted more Harijan votes, he might have lost some of the support which Mr. Devi Lal was able to mobilize for his kinsman and relation among the landowning peasants. But if he had been able to win back a significant section of the Harijans – the if is a fairly big one – he would have made a major political gain for the Janata. For the alienation of the Harijans among the Hindus and of a growing section of the Muslims – there are no Muslims in Karnal – is the biggest problem the party faces in the north as well as the south. Be that as it may, it has barely escaped what could have been a disaster for it. For, if it had lost the Karnal seat, it could have been put on the defensive by Mrs. Gandhi, who is already exuding enormous confidence in her party’s future prospects, and found it difficult to hold her. It has won a respite but a brief one. Soon there will be by-elections in UP which will be equally critical for it. It must, therefore, act quickly to improve its performance and close its ranks if it is to consolidate its position and to provide reasonably effective government in coming months and years.