Chandra Shekhar wanted Janata Dal factions to have a common programme. His most critical contribution to politics of “Third Front” was his insistence that it must be based on a “common minimum programme.” The Janata Dal that was hurriedly put together on 11 October, 1988 was not based on such a programme, and therefore came to a shambles in no time. The extraordinary courage that Mr VP Singh showed in exposing the Bofors scandal, while being a minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government, gave hope to parties opposed to the Congress that a fresh alternative could be raised against the Congress. Mr Devi Lal, Mr RK Hegde and Mr Biju Patnaik, chief ministers of Haryana, Karnataka and Orissa, respectively, were in a hurry. They saw in Mr VP Singh a Central point around which the new structure could be built. Talking about irregularities in the Bofors gun deal, Mr Singh in no time acquired the image of a leader who was cleaner than the then reigning Mr Clean, Rajiv Gandhi.
As the leaders got busy in raising the new alternative ~ standing apart from the Congress and the BJP ~ and waited for Mr Singh’s exit from the Congress, Mr Chandra Shekhar as the leader of the Janata Party was apprehensive. The presidentship of the party was held by the comparatively inexperienced Ajit Singh, and the decision to merge the Janata Party into the proposed entity was to be taken by Chandra Shekhar. There was another problem. Mr Chandra Shekhar was unwilling to accept Mr Singh, his political junior, as his leader in the new set-up. Time was short, and Mr VP Singh had after leaving the government and the Congress floated his small group, Jan Morcha, with some supporters to raise the issue of ethics in politics.
The leaders trying to set up the new alternative wanted Chandra Shekhar not to worry about details and offer the Janata Party’s merger without preconditions. They did not want the anti-Congress wave built on the Bofors scandal to weaken. Chandra Shekhar, however, kept saying the different parties and factions interested in the new set-up must formulate a common agreed programme to ensure its stability.
The Janata Party leader’s worry was the proposed alternative should not meet the fate of the Janata Party that was also raised in an ad hoc manner in 1977, and broke up as quickly as it was raised because of the missing common thread. The Janata Party had a different background. Its concept was born in jails where the anti-Congress leaders were imprisoned during the Emergency. There was sudden withdrawal of the Emergency and declaration of elections. The non-Congress parties could not get much time to work out a philosophy other than that the Congress had to be wiped out of power.
Chandra Shekhar knew this shortcoming of the Janata Party, having been closely associated with the experiment. So, he insisted that a common minimum programme be worked out for the Janata Dal, that was not named yet. Unfortunately, he was in a minority, and was almost getting projected as someone standing in the way of the new set-up. The new party was launched without any well laid out programme that could bind together firmly the different parties, factions, groups and individuals intent on taking on the mighty Congress. The force of circumstances was such that the Janata Dal founders went ahead with the party, ignoring Mr Chandra Shekhar’s advice and paid heavily later. The party did come to power but its weak foundation was soon exposed. Chandra Shekhar did not accept Mr VP Singh as his leader but did agree not to raise any objection to his being the party president. To fill the vacuum of a common programme, Mr Singh did try to later inject the Mandal philosophy into the Janata Dal but it gave rise to differences.
Mr Devi Lal’s supporters organised an unprecedented rally to show his strength. The supporting BJP replied with its own Ayodhya programme. The Janata Dal went into a split mode, and kept breaking into smaller factions. The significance that lay in a “common minimum programme” to keep together different parties and factions in any “coalition” was realised at the time of the launch of the UPA. The UPA came to power with the outside help of the Left on the basis of the common minimum programme.
