NEW DELHI: The first national convention of the Janata Dal (S) is scheduled to be held at Ballia Chandra Shekhar’s home-town from January 31.

Party secretary and former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has been asked to make this a truly memorable occasion. They plan to erect a tent which will cover a one kilometer area and a stage that can hold 250 people.

The party which has 54 MPs in the Lok Sabha exactly 10% of the actual membership of the House plans to bring in 20000 delegates for the three day affair. Party spokesman Satya Prakash Malaviya claims this can easily be done. The pandal has a capacity to hold 1.25 lakh people. Many of them predictably will be ferriod from Haryana the stronghold of Chautala

Not to be outdone the Janata Dal also plans to hold its national convention at Puri. Party spokesman Jaipal Reddy of course is not flaunting figures of the delegates or the size of the pandal.

But he refuted the suggestion that the idea of holding the convention was an afterthought. This is to scotch rumors that the JD was in no position to hold such a meeting.

But the fact remains that both parties are holding conventions simultaneously with an eye on the possible mid-term elections sometime this year.

The Janata Dal which rode to power on the anti-Congress wave had no time to consolidate its organizational network. Whatever Organisations it has is under the control of Devi Lal in Haryana and Rajasthan or Mulayam Singh Yadav in U.P. If it has to go to the polls it requires some organisations not only in the Hindi belt but in other parts also except West Bengal Tamil Nadu Andhra Pradesh and Kerala where it will assume the role of a junior partner in the proposed Left Front-National Front alliance. This is because it hopes to build a bigger base on the Mandal issue Ever since the split the party bosses have been pressing V.P.Singh to put the party back on the rails.

If this is the case with the JD the breakaway JD(S) which is not even registered with the Chief Election Commissioner needs to hold the national convention even more urgently

Chandra Shekhar and Mulayam Singh Yadav have been consistently discounting the reports of withdrawal of Congress support to their respective governments despite Rajiv Gandhi and Narain Dutt Tiwari denouncing the governments in the same breath.

The inference is clear. The Congress is not happy to continue with the current arrangement for long.

Yet no one is certain as to how long this state of suspended animation would continue. If the party has to face elections suddenly it would run into innumerable problems. It requires beginning with an election symbol it needs to be registered with the Election Commissioner and has to complete sundry other formalities.

If the Janata Dal can claim the organizational and governmental backup in two states Bihar and Orissa the JD(S) is at the helm in UP and Gujarat the D(S) has not even Cleared the formal nomenclature confusion that is whether the ruling party is JD or JD(S).

All these and relate issues might be sorted out at the convention. It will also formalize the merger of the Janata Party with the JD(S). The former might be small with only Rajya Sabha member Subramaniam Swamy but it appears its symbol and probably even its name might come in handy to the JD(S) in case it faces the electorate. From hindsight it seems that the former party president Chandra Shekhar had consciously managed the continuation of the Janata Party so that he could have an alternate platform from that of V.P.Singh.

Apart from these motives imputed to Chandra Shekhar the other important fact behind this merger to be ratified by the convention in Ballia is the realisation that the alliance with the Congress which has brought them to power may not continue till the elections.

The Congress in spite of extending support to Chandra Shekhar wants to cat the cake lamented a senior JD(S) member. They want to go to the polls as critics not only of the JD but also of the JD(S). In such a situation any poll adjustment or understanding appears remote.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 1, 1991