Mid-Term Madness

and confusion which now engulfs Europe, and conscious that there is a renewed interest in the apparent viability of political democracy in India, it is depressing to find after a two- week absence that a kind of mid-term madness has taken hold of various ambitious elements in the ruling Congress party. Whereas, generally speaking, the return to political normalcy in the context of the coming mid-term polls in the northern States is to be welcomed, the old rivalries at the Centre seem to have sharpened. These rivalries, an integral part of the Congress hierarchy for the time being, will have to be submerged to permit Indira Gandhi a choice of candidates and alignments without which only a demoralising and dangerous status quo result is likely from the mid-term polls.