MRS GANDHI’S CABINET NEW DELHI SHUFFLE MIGHT POINT TO EARLY ELECTION

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32352, 18 July 1970, Page 12

MRS GANDHI’S CABINET NEW DELHI SHUFFLE MIGHT POINT TO EARLY ELECTION

(By

DAVID LOSHAK

in New Delhi, for the “Daily Telegraph”, London)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

Although there are 18 months to go before India’s Government, led by Mrs Indira Gandhi, finishes its full five-year term, the run-up to the next General Election has already begun. This is the basic significance of the otherwise confusing and apparently pointless Ministerial reshuffle at the end of June.

As Mr Wilson had, so Mrs s Gandhi has the power to call t an election at any time. She 1 can try for a snap victory, t or hand on to the bitter end ' in the face of accumulating • problems, political and econ- 1 omic. One main aim of her reshuffle was to gather all the ‘ main agencies of political ' power into her own hands. 1 For a non-presidential, demo- 1 cratically-elected leader, she now wields an extraordinary personal control over many key aspects of the nation’s life. As well as Prime Minister she is Minister of Planning and Minister of Atomic Energy. She has also taken over the most powerful Government department in India, the Home Ministry, and has changed its functions so that when it reverts to the charge of a full-time Minister she, as Premier, will retain the real power. About 60 of the 100 sections of the Ministry have been transferred to the Cabinet secretariat. They include the Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Close To The States She will also in future have the deciding power, hitherto the Home Minister’s, over all senior Government appointments. It will be she, from now on, and not some halftrusted “colleague” running his own kingdom within a kingdom, who will be in close touch with all of India’s 17 state Governments and their Chief Ministers. This is a vital function at most times, but above sail as an election approaches. All the inducements of patronage can be brought to bear. And that , is not all. Although she relinguished the portfolio of Minister of Finance, Mrs Gandhi has kept control of the Bureau of Revenue Intelligence. She has also decided to take over the bulk of industrial licensing. With skill, and perhaps some luck, Mrs Gandhi has come near to establishing herself in a position almost as dominating as the one commanded by her father, Pandit Nehru. She is no longer a mere first among equals, and she bas succeeded in humbling even the most powerful of her potential rivals for the leadership. Cabinet Enemies This means, of course, that she has enemies within her Cabinet, but with an election dangling over their heads like a Damoclean sword they have little choice but to pull hard together. In a rather remarkable wily, the Premier seems to have fashioned a team out of what is essentially a hotchpotch of generally underprincipled and over-opportun-ist self-seekers. It would seem more likely than not that Mrs Gandhi will seek to cash in, as it were, , on the glamour surrounding this new pre-eminence before it begins to fade. She will be gambling her political life on victory. But, as last year’s vicious infighting in the Congress party showed, she does not lack audacity. “Instant Socialism” It is more than a year since she single-handedly nationalised the banks. It is still not too late to present this economically anodyne measure as the supreme catalyst for an Indian surge into instant socialism. Mrs Ghandi’s Government has no apparent answer to mounting inflation and economic stagnation nor to spreading lawlessness, nor to the remainder of India's undiminishing host of chronic and deep-seated problems. But a window-dressing measure like the abolition of the privy purses of the former Princes, which is due to be passed soon, would make a potent election gimmick if expeditiously exploited, even though its economic effect will be nil. If, as seems likely, the current monsoon proves a good one and if pending State elections in the southern State of Kerala go well for the ruling Congress party, Mrs Ghandi seems almost certain to opt for a snap poll, towards the end of 1970 or in early 1971. Opposition Alliance The Opposition parties have adopted the same reasoning. The old Congress leaders, who split off from Mrs Ghandi’s . majority section of the party last year, are seeking an early electoral alliance with chief Rightwing groups, Swatantra (Private Enterprise) and Jan Sangh (Hindu Nationalist). It is the fickle loyalties within the top echelons of the Congress party which pre-

sent the biggest short-term threat to Mrs Ghandi’s position. Last year’s “purge” of the so-called “reactionaries" within the party gave it only temporary respite from internal dissensions. In her peremptory and autocratic Cabinet reshuffle, Mrs Ghandi publicly demeaned several leading political figures, notably Mr

Dinesh Singh, the former Foreign Minister, now Industries Minister. These Ministers, never close allies before, could well decide now that their futures would be brighter without Mrs Ghandi, and sink their differences in a putsch. Indian politicians play that sort of game hard, fast and loose, and with considerable relish.