To Each Its Own Area

dent. After much brave talk about the need for an energetic and effective President who would revamp the party organisation, re-establish rapport between the rank and file and the leadership and reactivate the party at the grass-roots, it is becoming clear that what the Prime Minister wants is a President who will do her bidding. Of course, the Congress President and the Prime Minister have necessarily to work together smoothly; indeed one of the problems of the party has been that they have not since Indira Gandhi's assumption of Prime Ministership. But this collaboration between the leader of the party and the leadc- of the government has to be programmatic which is not what Indira Gandhi evidently has in mind. What she expects of the next party Pre- sident is that he will underpin her efforts at survival through continued balancing of opposing factions. But since it is more or less clear that she will not get such a President, the next best thing is have a weak and ineffective incumbent.