The kingmaker | Game of thrones

History would judge Narasimha Rao differently for what he did to the nation, but the Congress as a party atrophied during his reign. It still struggles to shed the diminution of stature it suffered then, as the BJP rose under charismatic leaders like L.K. Advani and A.B. Vajpayee. As Rao left the stage, Sonia Gandhi had not fully emerged from the sphinx-like solitude of 10, Janpath. The one who took the wheel was Sitaram Kesri, an old-style apparatchik who ticked all the boxes for the stereotypical neta: wily, scheming, more comfy in the backroom or on the white gaddas spread out for Congress Working Committee baithaks than out in the sunlight.

Such a man became the arbiter of everyone’s fate for two years, and the legacy he left behind still haunts his party: if potential partners still harbour doubts at the Congress’s trustworthiness, it owes to those two stormy years when Kesri seated and unseated two governments. Too clever by half, he cleared the rubble for the BJP. The Janata parivar, too, was the opposite of a monolith: a congeries of old socialists, Mandal prizefighters like Mulayam and Lalu Yadav, regional satraps, Left ideologues. But the third run of non-Congressism added a vital new element to New Delhi politics: though rarely given credit, the United Front had found a way for the federal polity to be represented more fully.

Unlike the older Janata test runs, they realised the challenges of cohering together, refined the coalition mechanism, and laid down a protocol that enabled ideologically disparate parties to cohabit honourably under a common minimum programme. They saw it as an asset, not a liability—a face of India’s diversity. Federalism was no accidental byproduct of expediency: India was fulfilling its being as a Union of States, strong provinces staying loyal to their ecologies, rather than bowing to an imperial dominion.