NEW DELHI-Granting the Politics

NEW DELHI Granting the Politics THE two-day conference of the leaders of the ruling party convened by Indira Gandhi last week, ostensibly with a view to working out an action programme to carry out commitments made to the people and implement the party's election manifesto, has on the contrary highlighted some of the characteristics and constraints of the Congress in its newly re-established hegemony. So long as radical slogans were serving the immediate electoral purposes of the party, they were voiced in unison, But their implemention no\v required of the Congress party is quite another thing, and has brought to the fore differences in outlook and approach and precipitated an indirect acknowledgement of the party's limitations by the high command. The two-day conference provided occasion for this in the wake of the controversy on land ceilings. Interesting to watch was the role the Prime Minister played and the Centrist positions she was obliged to adopt in the clash between what are now called the 'ultra-radicals' in the party and the more 'cautious' sections in charge of government administration.