The Janata Dal (has) a self-destructive streak ... The Janata Dal seems to prefer shrinking itself to extinction ... Today's JD has (no) national level leaders who could win specific States for the JD.

... Hegde cannot be faulted for describing the Janata Dal as a party "diseased and dying". The most grievous blow to the party is the refusal of Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal to return to the parent party. The only bastion of the Janata Dal will thus be lost because of the myopic mulishness of a few anti-Laloo diehards ... There was a time when the nation thought that the large centrist space in Indian polity being vacated by the Congress would be filled by the Janata Dal. It now looks as if the space would remain a vacuum.