Mrs. Indira Gandhi has reemerged as a formidable political figure as a result of the vidhan sabha polls in Karnataka, Andhra and Maharashtra. This is by far the most important outcome of the elections in these three states. No one anticipated or could have anticipated when the polls were announced, or even during the election campaign, with the result that almost the whole country has been taken by surprise. It is, indeed, doubtful that either her supporters or she herself had expected so spectacular a victory. The former prime minister had a reasonably powerful ally in Mr. Devaraj Urs in Karnataka. He had implemented land reforms fairly effectively in the interests of the Harijans and other weak sections of society. But even he was supposed to have suffered in popular esteem as a result of the findings of the Grover commission which has held him guilty of nepotism in four cases. Inthe other two key states going to the polls – Assam and Meghalaya cannot be said to belong to the same category in immediate political terms – her rivals were believed to be too well entrenched to be overwhelmed by her – Mr Brahmananda Reddi and Mr. Vengal Rao in Andhra and Mr. Y.B. Chavan and Mr. Vasantdada Patil in Maharashtra. There were, it is true, large-scale defections from the official Congress in Andhra but these were by and large to the Janata party. Mrs. Gandhi attracted large crowds wherever she went in the course of her whirlwind tour. But even then it was not easy to conclude that the people who came to listen to her would also vote for her candidates. This was a legitimate doubt not so much in view of the disclosures before the Shah commission in New Delhi as in view of the weakness of her organization and the standing of her nominees. She was said to have fielded almost anyone who was willing to offer himself or herself. All that is an old story now. It has been conclusively demonstrated that Mrs. Gandhi’s appeal in large parts of the country remains undiminished in spite of all that happened during the emergency and all that has been revealed in recent months about the abuse of power by those close to her.
A corollary to Mrs. Gandhi’s spectacular victory is that the official Congress headed by Mr. Brahmananda Reddi and Mr. Y.B. Chavan has been gravely weakened. The blow it has received may not prove fatal. But it can be taken for granted that there will be a further exodus from it even at the level of MPs and it will forfeit the right to inherit the name and flag of the Indian National Congress. This will be a tragedy of the first order. For the party represents elements who stood for certain norms in political life and who could have worked for stability and order at a time of growing turbulence in the country. Contrary to Mrs. Gandhi’s charge, they were not colluding with the Janata. But they could and would have worked for a national consensus which would have helped the country tide over the difficult period ahead. But this development too, in a sense vindicates the former prime minister’s decision to split the Congress. Events have borne out her arrogant assumption that she had carried the former ruling party on her shoulders for the last 10 years and that it would not be able to command much influence once she left it whatever the strength and caliber of men who were willing to follow her. Mr. Reddi, Mr. Chavan and their supporters doubtless did not wish to provoke her and tried their best to accommodation her. This spirit of accommodation helped them inasmuch as they were able to carry a majority of the working committee and AICC members with them and thus retain the party symbol – ironically the cow and the calf. But Mrs. Gandhi called it a mere arithmetical majority and that is what it has turned out to be. Mr. Reddi and Mr. Chavan have been humiliated by the people in their own states. The former has already resigned as Congress president and it is all too likely that the latter will soon find his position as leader of the opposition challenged.
The Janata party has not fared too badly in Karnataka and Andhra and it has done reasonably well in Maharashtra. That would be some solace to its leaders, but not too much. It must inevitably be deeply disturbed over Mrs. Gandhi’s reemergence as a central figure in the country’s political life, especially because, despite evidence to the contrary, many of its leading lights had convinced themselves that she was finished forever. Mr. Charan Singh and Mr. Chandra Shekhar have been in agreement on no other point except that she had ceased to be a political factor. It may not be fair to say that the vote for her is a vote against the Janata and its performance in the one year it has been in power in New Delhi. On the contrary, it would appear that the traditional Congress vote in Karnataka, Andhra and parts of Maharashtra, particularly Vidarbha, has remained solid but gone to her party en bloc. But she is going to interpret her victory as a repudiation of the Janata polities and leadership by the people and it cannot be ruled out that this would find echoes within the ruling party, and thus aggravate tensions in it and give a new edge to the talk of political realignments that has been going on in its rank for months. The former Jana Sangh leaders can, for example, legitimately claim that the electoral strategy worked out by the party president of attracting defectors from the Chavan-Reddi Congress has backfired. The Janata leadership must also be concerned over its failure to annex the southern states of Andhra and Karnataka which it desperately needed to do in order to overcome the widespread impression that it remains a party essentially of the Hindi-speaking belt. It is perhaps premature to speculate on the AIADMK’s attitude towards the Union government in the changed context. But Mr. M.G. Ramachandran may well find it tempting to cooperate with the Indira Congress in order to fashion a southern bloc.