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Congress has been decimated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Gains
elsewhere cannot compensate for this loss. India is obviously
passing through a period of great turbulence. As such, it is
difficult to say that this is a period of transition and that India
will, as in the past, soon achieve a measure of stability either as
a result of the recovery of the Congress, or of a further expansion
in the influence of the BJP. Indeed, it would not be prudent even to
write off the Janata Dal under V.P.Singh's leadership, though in
view of the experience of a similar assertion by the middle
peasantry in the past, it would not be surprising if it turns out
that the Dal has peaked its influence and is on the way down. All
that can, in my assessment, be ruled out is the much talked about
realignment of political forces and that too with the qualification
that the Janata Dal might still split and the dissidents join the
Congress.
That apart, the supposedly unlikely
realignment of forces in opposition to the BJP is unlikely to
materialize. Ever since the twenties when the Communist Party of
India was established, communists and leftists sympathetic to the cause,
have been expecting (read wanting) the Congress to split into progressive
and reactionary wings and the progressive factions
to make common cause with them. The Congress split in 1969 to their
advantage, but it turned out to be a temporary one; the game was up
with the imposition of emergency in 1975. It split again in 1978, to
no advantage to them. If it splits again which appears unlikely, the
gainer will, in all probability, be the BJP.
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