It is reasonably clear that a channel of communication exists between the Janata leaders in New Delhi and the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr Devraj Urs, in Bangalore and that they will come to his rescue if he faces defeat in the state legislature due to meet later this month. On the face of it, Mr Jagjivan Ram has been non-committal on the plea that Mr Urs has not yet approached him. In fact Mr Ram is letting it be known publicly that he would consider favourably such a request. The logic behind this stance is obvious. Mr Urs will be a valuable ally for the Janata in the forthcoming mid-term poll to the Lok Sabha. As for Mr Urs, there can be little doubt that he will seek the Janata’s support rather than risk being voted out of power. He is a hard-headed pragmatist who appreciates the importance of office. He is also realistic enough to recognise that the tide of public opinion is in Mrs Gandhi’s favour in Karnataka as in most other parts of the country. As such he cannot be interested in the dissolution of the state legislature and early elections to it. And his association with the Janata (S)-Congress (S) alliance is too recent and tenuous to bother him unduly. He has formally joined the Congress (S). But apart from him and his supporters, the party hardly exists in the state. Which means that he is in a position to take whatever decision he thinks is in his best interest. For him Mrs Gandhi is the main opponent. He cannot be unduly concerned about the Jana Sangh-RSS and its influence in the Janata.
If Mr Urs seeks the Janata Party’s support and accepts its logic, he will primarily be guided by personal and local considerations. But the reverberation of his action will be felt well beyond Karnataka. It will divest the alliance of the Janata (S) with the Congress (S) or whatever importance the former might attach to it and it will virtually toll the bell for the third force concept. This is especially so because the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, widely regarded as Mr YB Chavan’s protégé, is toying with the idea of forging an anti-Indira alliance in the state. Since Mr Chavan will find it difficult publicly to make common cause with the Janata in view of his membership of the Charan Singh cabinet, it will perhaps be necessary to follow a circuitous route. In plain terms, an agreed number of seats can be left for Janata nominees. Since the Congress (S) can be said to be influential only in Maharashtra and Karnataka – Maharashtra only if the parallel Congress headed by Mr Pawar is regarded as the Congress (S) in view of the almost en bloc exit of the MPCC (S) – the implications of these possible moves by Mr Urs and Mr Pawar are quite clear. Mr Charan Singh will be largely on his own and he will have to content himself with his support base in UP, Bihar and Haryana. As for the third force concept, it was a futile exercise from the very start. For it made little sense to try to bring Congressmen together on one platform when the traditional Congress vote had gone with Mrs Gandhi to the Congress (I). Events since mid-July have undermined whatever little hope there might have been for this scheme.
The Times of India, 1 September 1979