BANGALORE, INDIA, Oct 11, Reuter: Three of India’s major political groups merged on Tuesday to form a powerful new party to challenge Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Meeting in the Southern city of Bangalore, 6,000 politicians and activists endorsed the creation of the Janata Dal (People’s Party) from the Janata Party, Lok Dal (B) and Jan Morcha

The Congress (S), a breakaway faction of the Ruling Congress (l), sent a small delegation to the rally and was expected to confirm later whether it was ready to join the new party.

“I am happy and proud that a new baby has been born,” said Karnataka Chief Minister S.R. Bommai.

Vishwanath Pratap Singh, the scourge of Gandhi for more than a year through his campaign against official corruption, was elected President of the New Party which is expected to pursue centrist policies.

A former ally of Gandhi, Singh launched his Jan Morcha last year after being ousted as Defense Minister and later expelled from the ‘Congress (l).

Accepting the leadership of Janata Dal, he told cheering delegates in the grounds of Bangalore palace: “It is named after the people and it will be in the service of the people.”

Its aim, he said, was to create a national alternative to the Congress (I) which has ruled India for all but two years since independence from Britain in 1947.

The new party was originally to be known as the Socialist Janata Dal but the word socialist was dropped on the eve of the convention.

A policy document adopted on Tuesday made it clear that a Janata Dal government would switch India’s economic emphasis from urban industrial development to improving the rural and farm sectors.

India has lost its sense of direction, it said, and the fruits of 41 years of post-independence development had been confined to only a small section of society.

The new party said its priority would be to raise the living standards and status of the weakest in society.

Tuesday’s successful merger was in doubt right up to the last minute because of internal dissent within Lok Dal (B) and the Janata Party.

Western Analysts in New Delhi said the New Party’s ability to hold its factions together in the coming months would determine if it could challenge Gandhi in elections he must call before December next year.

One diplomat said grand alliances had been launched in the past with great fanfare only to fall apart within a short time.

The Janata Government which ruled for two years after the 1977 polls was just such an alliance. But it collapsed in disarray in 1979 allowing Gandhi’s mother Indira to sweep Congress back into power in 1980.

“Since a number of people think that an election is due by late this year or early next year, burying the hatchet might look much more attractive now than if it was further away,” the diplomat said.

“It is encouraging from an opposition viewpoint that they can get this far. The problem for Rajiv Gandhi’s inner circle is whether they can rely on it falling apart.”

Article extracted from this publication >> October 14, 1988