By postponing organisational elections, the Janata leadership has averted a major crisis in the party. But it has done so at a cost which may turn out to be crushingly heavy. Since the former BLD headed by Mr. Charan Singh had boycotted the elections on the grounds that its principal rival, the erstwhile Jana Sangh, had “enrolled” a large number of bogus members, the leadership did not have much of a choice. It just could not go ahead with the poll unless it had decided to drive Mr. Charan Singh and his supporters out of the party. As it happened, the former socialists and the CFD were also opposed to the elections. They, too, were afraid that the Jana Sangh constituent would capture the organisation with the willing help of RSS volunteers. But by cancelling organisational elections after they had already been held in some states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the leadership has acknowledged that these can never be held. This means that the Janata will forever remain a loose coalition of its former constituents and that it will not attempt to become a reasonably integrated party with a common membership and a properly elected hierarchy of leaders. This arrangement might have worked if the constituents themselves were properly organised. But they are not, the only exception being the Jana Sangh and that, too, if it is regarded as an extension of the RSS. The Congress (O), the BLD and the Socialist party were badly organised even before they merged to form the Janata; the CFD came into existence only during the 1977 election campaign. But the first three organisations had at least some kind of membership before the merger. They have none now. The Janata leaders are, therefore not going to be accountable to anyone and there is no machinery whereby more representative individuals can replace the existing ones.
The Janata leadership has also shelved, at least for the time being, the contentious issue of dual membership and loyalty, that is, the controversy over the Jana Sangh’s alleged close association with the RSS and the willingness of its leaders to take orders from the latter. This may or may not persuade Mr. Raj Narain and other like-minded leaders to drop their demand that former Jana Sanghis choose between membership of the Janata and continuing connections with the RSS. But Mr. Raj Narain will have lost a good deal of his leverage if and when the four-man committee set up by the Janata’s Parliamentary Board inducts, as proposed, six Jana Sangh legislators into the UP cabinet. Since the committee consists of Mr. Morarji Desai, Mr. Charan Singh, Mr. Jagjivan Ram and Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, it should be able to enforce the decision pretty soon. This will be another indication that the Janata leadership as a whole has opted for the status quo ante in UP, as it has opted for the status quo in the organisation.
The Times of India, 9 April 1979