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.

... contd.