In asking Mr. Raj Narain to explain his recent criticism of Mr. Chandra Shekhar, the Janata parliamentary board has, on the face of it, ignored Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan’s appeal to it to try and defuse the crisis in the party. Indeed, one of the general secretaries, Mr. Rabi Ray, has quoted Mr. Morarji Desai as having said at the board’s meeting last Thursday that Mr. Narayan was not the arbiter of the Janata affairs. But in reality the board has not closed the door to an amicable resolution of the problem created by Mr. Raj Narain’s “tirade against the party president”. Since it has not fixed a time-limit for seeking and securing a proper explanation from Mr. Raj Narain, he can, if he so chooses, keep the matter hanging for quite some time and allow passions to cool down. It can also help matters if, on the one hand, Mr. Raj Narain sticks to the present line that there was nothing personal about his criticism of Mr. Chandra Shekhar and if, on the other, he refrains from exacerbating the issue by returning to the attack on whatever ground. But will he observe this kind of restraint which is rather uncharacteristic of him? Clearly this will depend not so much on Mr. Raj Narain’s inclination as on Mr. Charan Singh’s decision. This was the crux of the matter before the parliamentary board met and this remains the crux of the matter after it has served notice on Mr. Raj Narain.
Mr. Rabi Ray, who claims to speak on behalf of both the Union home minister and the health minister, has said that he had advised the parliamentary board not to try to delink Mr. Raj Narain’s actions from Mr. Charan Singh’s view. It is, therefore, no longer possible for anyone to suggest or pretend that Mr. Narain might have acted without the approval of Mr. Charan Singh. Such a suggestion would have been unconvincing even earlier. Now it is wholly untenable. The key question, therefore, is not whether Mr. Raj Narain will recant or keep silent but whether Mr. Charan Singh will press his own resignation from the Janata parliamentary board and the national executive. Even otherwise two courses are open to him. He can allow the crisis to simmer down or he can aggravate it by detailing and publicizing his grievances and encouraging Mr. Raj Narain to persist in his defiance of the Janata leadership headed nominally by Mr. Chandra Shekhar but in reality by Mr. Desai. Since even in retrospect it is not quite clear what he had hoped to achieve by resigning from the party bodies in the first instance, it is difficult even to speculate whether and how far he will push the challenge. He has conferred with his lieutenants and made a sharp, though brief statement, on the parliamentary board’s resolution. But that cannot and does not clinch the issue. Meanwhile one point can be made without reservation. If either at the time of resigning from the party bodies or encouraging Mr. Narain to question Mr. Chandra Shekhar’s and the national executive’s authority, Mr. Charan Singh had calculated that he could thereby impose his will on other party leaders and force the erstwhile Jana Sangh to side with him in his confrontation with them, he has good reason to reconsider his strategy. The former Jana Sangh has made common cause with the others and they have demonstrated their willingness to stand up to him. But how can one be sure that he had made such a calculation? At the moment too little factual evidence is available to permit a reasonably firm assessment.