Dog Days

Dog Days THE thunderstorm all of a sudden lashing Amethi has provided the alibi for postponing the scheduled session of the All-India Congress Committee. The real reason for the postponement must however be the tidings conveyed by the parliamentary and state assembly by-election results. The Jullundur swallow has been unable to make for a Congress(l) summer. From everywhere else in the country, the results are uniformly disappointing. In Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party has without question relegated the prime minister's party to the second position. In the single by-felection held in Karnataka too, while the BJP could not win, it has at least succeeded in breathing down the neck of the Congress(I). If credence is to be given to reports received from diverse sources, the Congress(I), fighting a lonely battle against both the DMK and the AlADMK in adversarial roles, had little chance of success in the Lok Sabha by-polls for the Palani constituency in Timil Nadu; the prospects were hardly better in Ottapalam in Kerala. By postponing these two by-elections for altogether specious reasons, the Chief Election Commissioner has saved the Congress(I) from extreme discomfiture. No such escape hatch was however available in Andhra Pradesh; the party lost both the assembly by-elections in that state to the Telugu Desam Party by sizeable margins. No respite waited for it in Bihar either La loo Prasad Yadav has seen to it that not only the Janata Dal victor decimated the BJP in the by-election for the Patna Lok Sabha seat by a margin of more than one-and-a-half lakh; he satisfied himself additionally by seeing to it that the Congress(I) candidate came a very poor third.