Opinion When Congress’s loss became Indira Gandhi’s gain

It was the first general election without Jawaharlal Nehru,who had almost single-handedly won for the party the first three general elections hands down. Indira Gandhi’s perceived ability to garner more votes for the party than any other Congress leader in the election due only 13 months hence was,therefore,one of the reasons why the “Syndicate” of Congress party bosses chose her as the successor to Lal Bahadur Shastri,who had died suddenly at Tashkent. Morarji

Desai,who had grudgingly accepted the consensus in Shastri’s favour,insisted on contesting for the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party this time around. Indira Gandhi defeated him,355 votes to 169,partly because of her personal popularity and partly because of the Syndicate’s unconcealed determination to keep Desai at bay. The joke at that time was: “There may be no unanimity for Indiraji,but there certainly is ‘unanimosity’ against Morarji”.

However,within a few months,things changed radically. The Syndicate,which had masterminded the ascension of both Shastri and Indira Gandhi,and Desai,bitter enemies until then,suddenly became allies and made common cause against her. Desai’s cohorts began to run down the prime minister even on the floor of the House,no longer in party councils only. As for the rift between her and the Syndicate,it was not merely the usual case of the queen and queen-makers inevitably drifting apart. Some of her policies had enraged K. Kamaraj,the Congress president and the acknowledged leader of the Syndicate. After her disastrous decision in June 1966 to devalue the rupee,he had virtually declared war on her.

As the election approached,the Syndicate saw to it that many of Indira Gandhi’s supporters,including a former defence minister,Krishna Menon,did not get the party ticket. Those that couldn’t be kept out were given paltry sums from the party funds. To counter this,she adopted the strategy of appealing to the people directly over the heads of party bosses.

No stranger to electioneering — she had canvassed for the Congress in all three previous elections — she jumped into the fray this time with ferocious energy. She travelled tirelessly across the country in pursuit of her objective of projecting her personality to as many people as possible,and to make them feel that no other leader cared for them half as much as she did.

Everywhere she went she received a tremendous welcome from huge crowds that waited for hours to catch a glimpse of her. She had not yet acquired oratorical skills and most of her speeches were lacklustre. But this made no difference to admiring crowds. In some places she encountered hostility,too. At Bhubaneswar,for example,a stone thrown at her hurt her nose,but she refused to interrupt her spirited speech,for which she was cheered to the skies.

However,the election results,when they came in,underscored that the enormous outpouring of affection by adoring crowds does not necessarily translate into votes. The electorate had,in fact,delivered the Congress party a heavy blow. Its share of votes had slumped to 41 per cent from 45 in the 1962 poll,the last in her father’s time. But,thanks to the first-past-the-post system,the loss of seats was much greater. In a House of 520,the Congress share plummeted to 283. This was a dangerously narrow majority,especially considering the continuing strife between Indira Gandhi on the one hand and the combination of Desai and the Syndicate on the other.

It was in the states,however,that the enormity of the setback to the Congress became clear. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu,it was crushed so badly by a militantly regional party that it has never been able to regain power there. But even more hurtful was its loss of power in eight north Indian states,giving rise to the jibe that one could travel “all the way from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Amritsar without having to traverse a single inch of Congress-governed territory”. “After the broken nose,a slap in the face,” commented The Times,London.

Indira Gandhi was deeply worried,of course. But paradoxically,the Congress’s big loss had strengthened,not weakened,her,though she was in no position yet to have her way completely. In the first place,the Syndicate that used to lay down the law was shattered itself because of the electoral defeat of important members such as S.K. Patil and Atulya Ghosh. The fall of the most important of them,Kamaraj,was pitiable. He had lost not only his state (Tamil Nadu),of which he was considered the “uncrowned king”,but also his own seat. Second,many Congressmen,including some supporters of Desai,started saying that that a party badly mauled at the polls could not afford a recriminatory and divisive inner-party struggle. They added that to the large number of non-Congress-ruled states,Indira Gandhi would be a more acceptable prime minister than any other Congress leader.

Desai,however,was not prepared to listen to any of this. His resolve to contest her leadership was unshaken. But he was immediately thwarted because the Congress’s self-preservation instinct prevailed. The deflated Syndicate suddenly rode again and forced a compromise on both factions. Under it,Desai became deputy prime minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet and she was unanimously elected leader of the CPP.

Desai,when asked why had he accepted a lower position when even 24 hours earlier he was insistent that he was “more qualified” than Indira Gandhi to be prime minister,replied: “Yesterday was yesterday. Today is another day”.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator