It will be highly premature to conclude that the former BLD’s (Mr. Charan Singh’s group) qualified decision to boycott the forthcoming organizational elections sets the stage for a split in the Janata Party. But it is a significant move and it can set in motion a chain reaction which can … Read More
Mr. Teng Hsiao-ping, China’s strongman, has given two leading American journalists an interview which is truly stunning in its audacity and implications. The interview is on record but not for direct quotation. As such the journalists have had to paraphrase what Mr. Teng has told them. This cannot, however, detract … Read More
It is as easy to exaggerate the importance of Mr. Charan Singh’s action in ruling out his “association with (the Union) government in any capacity whatsoever” as it is to underestimate it. For it is as possible to rush to the conclusion that the issue is finally joined between Mr. … Read More
The Janata has won a significant victory in Fatehpur in UP in the wake of its equally important triumph in Samastipur in Bihar. The two together show fairly clearly that despite the rather poor morale of its top leadership mostly as a result of bitter infighting and the far from … Read More
It is reasonably clear that Mr. Charan Singh continues to be more concerned with his face than the future of the Janata party. Else at his meeting with the Prime Minister last Monday he would not have insisted on getting back the home portfolio and the number two position in … Read More
Thanks to remarkably prompt action by the government, an insidious attempt to malign some of the country’s well-known journalists can be said to have been frustrated to some extent. But only to some extent. For so foul has been the atmosphere in the country for some years that a lot … Read More
What looked like developing into a triumphal procession for Mrs. Gandhi has been halted at least for the time being. It has been halted in Samastipur by Mr. Karpoori Thakur. Thus whatever the outcome of the by election to the Lok Sabha in Fatehpur in U.P. next Sunday, the Janata victory … Read More
Two explanations are possible for the timing of Mrs. Gandhi’s appeal for unity of the two Congress parties. First, she could have been waiting to get elected to the Lok Sabha because she could have been keen to avoid creating the impression that her desire for unity was in any … Read More
If there was any scope for doubt that the Janata leaders are caught in a trap partly of their own making, the four-day political conference in Ujjain should remove it. They are aware that the party has been losing support and that the prospect of Mrs. Gandhi’s return to office … Read More
Mr Chandra Shekhar is the first Janata leader, indeed the first leading politician in the country, to make a favourable reference to the Congress split in 1969 in a long time. He has spoken in the context of the current efforts in his own party for a patch-up between Mr … Read More
