HVK Archives: Janata Dal split - Chronicle of a suicide foretold
Janata Dal split - Chronicle of a suicide foretold - The Times of India
Ajit Kumar Jha
()
9 July 1997
Title: Janata Dal split - Chronicle of a suicide foretold
Author: Ajit Kumar Jha
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 9, 1997
By splitting itself over the issue of presidentship, the Janata Dal has
launched itself on a course of political harakiri. While the party has lost
in the Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, its most charismatic face
after former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Mr Yadav has
ironically deprived himself of his national springboard even while forming
the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The political vacuum thus created will be
filled by the other two rivals, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the
Congress, thus ending the socialist dream of the centrist secular alternative.
Rampant Factionalism
Ever since the JD was formed and its first president Mr V P Singh elected
on October 11, 1988, it has split several times in the true tradition of
Socialist sectarianism in India. In fact, factionalism within the JD has
been so virulent and rampant that the party split once almost every year
till 1994. Since then, the party has witnessed several suspensions and
expulsions, more due to personal ego clashes than ideological issues.
The JD split for the first time in 1990 when Mr Chandrasekhar defected with
a splinter group of 54 Lok Sabha MPs, and the JD-led National Front
government of Mr VP Singh fell. By end of 1991, it split again, mainly in
Uttar Pradesh when Mr Ajit Singh was expelled from the party. In 1992-93,
the party further split in UP with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav walking out to
form the Samajwadi Party. Soon the UP disease infected Bihar. By 1994,
the party split in Bihar and Orissa when Mr George Fernandes and Mr Nitish
Kumar left to form the Samata Party. Indeed, the - visionless followers of
Ram Manohar Lohia seem much more intent on carrying on his legacy of todo
than of jodo.
Although each split has weakened the JD considerably in the past, the
latest is a suicidal act. Consider the following reasons: First, with Mr
Mulayam Singh Yadav already outside the party fold in UP, the severance of
ties with Mr Laloo Yadav in Bihar leaves the parent party with no
vote-getter in the entire Ganga basin.
Notwithstanding the CBI chargesheet that Mr Laloo Yadav faces, the new JD
president Mr Sharad Yadav - the anti-woman, hawala-tainted, wily operator
who recently cold shouldered Mr Inder Kumar Gujral by claiming that the
"Prime Minister was not God" - is no patch on the Bihar chief minister
either politically or morally. He neither carries much influence in Madhya
Pradesh, his home state, nor in Bihar from where he was elected in 1996.
While Mr Sharad Yadav is considered a fortunate product of favourable
circumstances, Mr Laloo Yadav is a stubborn fighter who creates his own
destiny.
If numbers alone could constitute power, Mr Laloo Yadav, the president of
the RJD, appears the bigger gainer. And that too when he is desperately
dodging the law. With 16 out of 22 Lok Sabha MPs and 145 out of 167 MLAs
from Bihar supporting Mr Yadav, he almost walked away with the entire Bihar
JD contingent. Although they might not be enough for him to survive the
no-confidence motion in Bihar, he hopes to pull through with the support of
about 30 Congress MLAs in the Bihar assembly. For a chief minister who
survived his first-term (1990-95) with a minority government, an
unprecedented phenomenon in Bihar, one is never quite sure of what he will
be up to next.
The recent split is suicidal for another reason. While some of the
previous divides in the JD were over the issue of pro-and anti-reservation,
the latest split has squandered the party's main agenda, the Mandal
platform of social justice. Similarly, militant secularism is under threat
because of the division between the two camps. As a result, the carefully
cultivated coalition of 'backwards', Dalits and Muslims built up by Mr
Laloo Yadav in Bihar might rupture in the next elections, just as it broke
apart in UP in the last.
OBCs Divided
After all, the 'backward classes' and Dalits turned out to be political
enemies in UP with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP and Ms Mayawati's Bahujan
Samaj Party moving in divergent directions whereas in 1993 they were allies
who fought the BJP. Similarly, the 1994 split in the Bihar JD divided the
OBCs between those led by Yadavs and others by Kurmis. The Kurmi-dominated
faction formed the Samata Party which allied with the BJP in the 1996 Lok
Sabha elections. The drastic decline in the JD vote in Bihar from 34 per
cent in the 1991 Lok Sabha polls to 25.7 per cent in 1996 proves the
negative impact on the party of the 1994 JD split in Bihar. The recent
split could be worse in terms of its electoral outcome.
What are the options for the JD in Bihar? Although the split does not seem
to have threatened the position of Prime Minister Gujral at least in the
short run, the party could be doomed in the next election in Bihar as it
has been in UP. In alliance only with the Left parties, the JD is in no
position to revive itself in Bihar despite some influential leaders like
Union railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan and former chief, whip Mr Devendra
Yadav. Only the charismatic leadership of a Nitish Kumar of the Samata
Party could rescue the JD, but that is most unlikely now.
Reversal of Fortune
Mr Laloo Yadav faces an equally uncertain future. In addition to splitting
the JD at his own peril, he has also lost the support of his allies, the
CPI and the CPM. He also faces the threat of a criminal conviction in the
fodder seam. His only option now is to ally with the Congress in the state
to retain his majority in the assembly. That should not be too difficult
given his proximity to the Congress president, Mr Sitaram Kesri and the
desperation of the post-Mandal Congress leadership to revive itself in the
Hindi heartland. But this for Mr Yadav could entail backing the Congress
in its bid for power at the Centre whenever the circumstances permit.
Meanwhile the JD losses will translate themselves into gains for the
BJP-Samata alliance and the Congress. The BJP-Samata linkage is likely to
make further inroads into the JD's base only if anti-Laloo and
anti-corruption, come to dominate politics in Bihar. But that may not he
enough to dislodge Mr Yadav for two reasons: first, the anti-Laloo forces
are divided between the left and the right; and second, the BJP gained a
mere two per cent vote between the 1991 and 1996 Lok Sabha elections in
Bihar despite its alliance with the Samata Party.
The RJD-Congress realignment seems more likely to succeed. Although Laloo
ought to go considering the corruption charges he faces - in fact Laloo
might go - the Laloo phenomenon seems here to stay. Only this time, it is
not the Socialists but the Congress which will benefit from such a
phenomenon. Politics is, indeed, a game of reversal of fortunes. The
Laloo phenomenon which began as anti-Congress in the first place now ends
up riding piggy-back on it.
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