Sugar-Tight-Rope Walking

with complete financial autonomy and with Sanjay Gandhi at the helm, and the move for a march on Parliament on May 16 with a charter of demands are part of the strategy. The right is not to force a realignment of forces to bring the Janata government down before it completes its normal five-year tenure; it is against what she views as the political vendetta against her, her son and her Emergency lieutenants. After , breaking away from the Congress at the beginning of 1978, Indira Gandhi could win for her new party the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and a share (even if short-lived) of power in Maharashtra, at the March 1978 elections to state assemblies. Rattled by her show of strength a section of the official Congress fell for the unity, moves which, after nearly a year's tortuous parleys, have now collapsed because dira Gandhi wanted a united Congress to save her from the consequences of the Special Courts Bill. Meantime, the fiasco of her Save India Day (August 9) had convicted her of the need to enter Parliament to secure first the liquidation of the rival Congress and, later, the disintegration of the Janata party. But her Lok Sabha tenure ended within weeks of her election from Chikmagalur and with a week in prison.