Whether this would become the pattern in all states in the future — or, better still, evolve into a system of straightforward elections between two or more candidates openly in the field — remains to be seen. However, even a small advance is welcome in the case of an excessively centralised party that remains mired in a world of its own making. Typical of the party’s entrenched mindset was an absurd statement made by one of its general secretaries, Margaret Alva. Obviously irked by widespread criticism, even within the party ranks, that failure to project an acceptable chief ministerial candidate (as against the BJP’s B.S. Yeddyurappa) contributed to its defeat, she claimed that the Congress, “being a democratic party”, never projected a chief ministerial candidate in advance. Its chief ministers, according to her, were “elected by the Congress legislators”!

Pray, when did it last happen and in which state? The bitter truth is that ever since Indira Gandhi established her supremacy in the Congress and the country in 1971, she saw to it that no Congress leader capable of building an independent power base was allowed to emerge in any state. For, he or she could be a potential challenge to the central leadership, current or in the process of being groomed. No wonder, every Congress legislature party duly met after winning an assembly election and requested her to nominate the chief minister. The late doyen of Indian journalism, Nikhil Chakravartty, once wrote: “Congress chief ministers are air-transported from New Delhi to state capitals.”

Notwithstanding the huge fluctuations in the Congress’s fortunes at the Centre, the old practice in relation to state chief ministers continued and was consolidated after Sonia Gandhi became Congress president a decade ago, and even more so after 2004 when her position became even stronger because she forswore the office of prime minister. Nothing illustrates the state of affairs better than the plight of luckless S.M. Krishna. Deservedly described as an “excellent” chief minister, he was unsurprisingly banished to the gilded cage called Mumbai’s Raj Bhavan. When the assembly elections in Karnataka could not be postponed on any pretext, the Congress “high command” felt that Krishna was needed in his home state. It is also characteristic of the party that his actual return was unduly delayed. Worse, seven other state satraps had by then ganged up on him.

Is it too much to hope that the committee the Congress president is to appoint — because the party has at last stumbled on the conclusion that its grassroots organisations need to be “revitalised” — would recommend the rescinding of practices that have become wholly out of date besides being counter-productive? What was feasible in the time of Indira Gandhi is not at all practicable now. She could appeal to the electorate across the country over the head of the party and could stage a spectacular return to power, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, just 33 months after reaching her nadir. Now the Grand Old Party of the freedom struggle is a shrunken shell of itself. Indira Gandhi did not allow her senior colleagues — such as Yeshwantrao Chavan, Jagjivan Ram and Swaran Singh — to travel to states other than their own. It did not matter. But what difference has been made to the elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat last year and in Karnataka now by the rallies of Sonia Gandhi and road shows of Rahul, to say nothing of the prime minister’s brief appearances?

This said, it must be added that while the Congress’s woes are immense, they are by no means confined to it. The same problems trouble a large number of regional parties that have also turned themselves into family businesses in which succession is strictly dynastic. Examples are too numerous and too obvious to be mentioned — extending from Kashmir to Kerala, via Chennai, and from Maharashtra to Meghalaya via Lucknow, Patna and Bhubaneswar. Nor is it an accident that a non-Yadav lieutenant of the Samajwadi Party boss, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and a close associate of Rahul Gandhi in the Congress have simultaneously crossed over to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj party.

Ironically, leadership problems are acute enough even in the Bharatiya Janata Party, which at one time was disciplined and in which signs of dynastic ambitions are still few and incipient. What can be more bizarre than the fact that, at a time when the party is celebrating its Karnataka triumph, no fewer than 35 saffron MLAs in Bihar should be demanding the removal of their leader and the state deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi? Nor is the BJP free from factionalism at higher levels.

No BJP leader has anything like the stature of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or his acceptability even to the party’s inveterate opponents. Unlike top leaders of the Congress, he always resisted the temptation to head both the government and the party. Consequently, BJP presidents were elected regularly but didn’t have much to show for themselves. Bangaru Laxman was exposed by Tehelka. Venkaiah Naidu overreached himself when he tried to bring about a fusion of Vikas purush (Vajpayee) and Lauh purush (L.K. Advani). And Rajnath Singh has been much of a muchness.

Finally, in sharp contrast to the trend in the rest of the world, gerontocracy afflicts both the mainstream parties. In the BJP, younger leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj have made a mark but the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate is 80. The Congress, too, has some promising young MPs, 23 of them scions of prominent past leaders. Only a handful of the youngsters have just been made ministers of state. But, with the exception of Sonia Gandhi, others wielding power at the top are above 70.

The writer is a political commentator

indermalhotra30@hotmail.com