Situated in the heart of colonial Delhi, 7 Jantar Mantar is a pale yellow building registered in the name of Sardar Patel Samarak Sansthan. The first thing that strikes the eye is that this building has weathered many storms, been declared an evacuee property, is archaic, uncared for, with the walls forever breaking and peeling off. Much like the Janata Dal (United), the political party it has housed for around three decades in all its different avatars.

The walls surrounding the steps leading to the first floor office of JD (U) are covered with posters, pasted in a most random manner. Most of them are of the party symbol, the arrow, pointing either up, down, left or right. An irony representing the chaos, squabbling and directionlessness that have prevailed over the years in the JD (U), a party that has as many leaders as it has followers.

Since its inception as the Janata Party in 1977, it has always been splitting, disintegrating and pulling in all directions and breaking up to produce new outfits, much like an amoeba. Offshoots of the Janata parivar fill up a bulk of the political space in India — the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (S), Lok Shakti, Lok Jan Shakti, Janata Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Biju Janata Dal and Chandrasekhar's one-man Samajwadi Janata Party are some of its better known progenies.

The bare facts Party president: George Fernandes Parliamentary party chairperson: Sharad Yadav Parliamentary party chief: Nitish Kumar Lok Sabha MPs: George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar, Kailash Baitha, Prabhunath Singh, Ajit Kumar Singh, Rajiv Ranjan alias Lallan Singh (all Bihar), Kunwar Sarvraj Singh (Uttar Pradesh) and P P Koya (Lakshadweep) Rajya Sabha MPs: Sharad Yadav, Bashishtha Narayan Singh MLAs in Bihar: 38 MLAs in Karnataka: 5 MLAs in Jharkhand: 8 January 1977 — Congress (Organisation), Bhartiya Jana Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal (Indian People's Party), Socialist Party and a handful of imprisoned Congress dissidents activate a post-Emergency multi-party front to contest the general elections under the banner of the Janata Party. March 1977 — The merger results in a dramatic electoral victory with the Janata Party forming the government at the Centre under the leadership of Morarji Desai. July 1979 — Political rivalry among the top leadership in the party — Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram — causes split. Charan Singh and some old elements of the Socialist Party defect and form the Lok Dal and run government with Indira Congress, support. Their connivances ultimately led to the demise of the Janata government in 1979 and paved the way for the dramatic return to power of the Congress (I) in 1980. 1987 — V P Singh is evicted from the Congress (I) and he forms the Janata Morcha. 1988 — Opposition factions from the Janata Party, Bharatiya Lok Dal and Janata Morcha along with a few regional parties, such as Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the National Conference, unite under the Janata Dal to form the National Front. December 1989 — In alliance with the BJP (a splinter group of the Janata Party, formed in April 1980), the Janata Dal defeats Congress (I) in the 1989 parliamentary elections. With V P Singh as the prime minister, the National Front government earns the appellation of "crutch government" since it depended on the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on its left and the BJP on its right. November 1990 — Chandra Shekhar, an ambitious Janata Dal rival who had been kept out of the National Front government, joins with Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister under V P Singh, to form the Samajwadi Janata Party with 60 Lok Sabha members, resulting in a split in the Janata Dal and the collapse of the National Front government. Chandra Shekhar, with the backing of the Congress (I) and the support of 280 members in the Lok Sabha succeeds in forming a new minority government and becomes prime minister (with Devi Lal as deputy prime minister). However, Chandra Shekhar's government too falls in less than four months following Congress (I) threats to withdraw support. June 1991 — The Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Janata Party decline after the fall of the Chandra Shekhar government. The factional rivalry and ineffectiveness that impeded the National Front government's efforts to provide effective government tarnishes the Janata Dal image. Mulayam Singh Yadav breaks away from the party to form his Samajwadi Party. 1992 — Janata Dal splits yet again with Lalu Prasad Yadav defecting from the Rashtriya Janata Dal as a result of a strong protest against his party leadership. Sharad Yadav becomes the leader of the remaining faction. 1994 — Caste differences in the Janata Dal leads to George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar breaking away to form the Samata Party. 1998 — Deve Gowda breaks away to form Janata Dal (Secular). The remaining faction of the party is named as Janata Dal (United), which joins hands with the BJP to become a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). 2002 — Ram Vilas Paswan quits JD(U) to form the Lok Janashakti Party. October 2003 — The Samata Party merges into the JD(U). The new party is now led by Samata Party president George Fernandes and continues to remain a part of the NDA coalition.

Janata Dal (U) may not have remained the largest offshoot of the Janata parivar, but it still has a big say in national politics due to the number of heavyweights it has within its ranks. It has eight members in the Lok Sabha and two in the Rajya Sabha including former defence minister and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) convenor George Fernandes.

The problem is that the party speaks in as many voices as the number of heads it has in Parliament. As some of its national leaders appear to have quite outgrown the party, many often end up contradicting its official line.

The party always appears to be on the crossroads, partly due to perpetual squabbles for one-upmanship amongst its leaders. As can be seen in its association with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). JD(U) parliamentary party chief Nitish Kumar and party president George Fernandes have carried on their Samata Party feud right into the JD(U). Nitish has claimed to have greater support in Bihar, the only state apart from Karnataka where the JD(U) has some presence.

The latest dilemma within the JD(U) on whether it should bid goodbye to the "communal" BJP in favour of Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Jan Shakti (LJS) is partly a manifestation of old Nitish-George clash. Nitish and his supporters believe the LJS can be handy in fighting against Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) while George Fernandes would not like to quit the NDA and lose his clout with the BJP top brass. For a change, Nitish clearly has more party members on his side this time. The recent meeting of the party's national executive in the Parliament House Annexe bore testimony to this, as over a hundred executive members from Bihar, Jharkhand and Karnataka argued in favour of severing ties with the BJP.

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