Long-Term Perspective Missing

role as the anti-communist par excellence lost its value. His services were of course utilised in 1971 to knock together a coalition extending from the Congress to the CPI, with Mukherji as the titular chief, only to keep the CPI(M) out of Writers' Building although that party had got a near-plarality in the House. This arrangement, however, did not suit the Centre for long, which in the wake of the Bangladesh crisis and for suppressing the CPI(M) and the Naxalites more ruthlessly wanted more direct and more drastic exercise of power. Mukherji's coalition was dismissed unceremoniously after having been in office for about a month. Thereafter Ajoy Mukherji simply faded away from the political stage.