08-28-2009, 10:00 AM
A bitter battle ahead (October 16-31, 1979)
It was, in a sense, the final and supreme irony.As the four top Janata Party leaders began their preliminary election forays around the country last fortnight, they were halted in their tracks.Jayaprakash Narayan, the man who had brought them all together by fostering a new political ideal for them, and who lay crushed by their betrayal,was eventually dead.The timing of JPâs death seemed symbolic: he passed away at the precise moment when the political party he had established single-handed was making a desperate bid to revive its fortunes.<b>On the morning of JPâs death on October 8,Babu Jagjivan Ram , the Janataâs candidate for prime ministership, was beginning his tour of Sasaram,the impoverished and drought-stricken region in western Bihar that has been his parliamentary constituency since 1952.</b>
âby Sunil Sethi and Arul Louis
<img src='http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday//images/30_YEARS_AGO_IN_IT/082109120649IT-30-YEARS-large.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
It was, in a sense, the final and supreme irony.As the four top Janata Party leaders began their preliminary election forays around the country last fortnight, they were halted in their tracks.Jayaprakash Narayan, the man who had brought them all together by fostering a new political ideal for them, and who lay crushed by their betrayal,was eventually dead.The timing of JPâs death seemed symbolic: he passed away at the precise moment when the political party he had established single-handed was making a desperate bid to revive its fortunes.<b>On the morning of JPâs death on October 8,Babu Jagjivan Ram , the Janataâs candidate for prime ministership, was beginning his tour of Sasaram,the impoverished and drought-stricken region in western Bihar that has been his parliamentary constituency since 1952.</b>
âby Sunil Sethi and Arul Louis
<img src='http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday//images/30_YEARS_AGO_IN_IT/082109120649IT-30-YEARS-large.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />