The Congress party’s presidentship has become a “family monopoly”, senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) LK Advani writes in his blog dated 6th February, 2011.

In his blog Advani talks about Belgaum in Karnataka where he had recently gone to inaugurate an auditorium by the Ramakrishna Mission. Going back in history, he says, “It was in Belgaum again that a Congress session was held in 1924 exactly one hundred years after Rani Chennamma from Kittur, close to Belgaum, rose in revolt against British rule much before the first war of Independence of 1857.”

He adds that Mahatama Gandhi commanded extraordinary influence over the Congress all his life but he became president of the party only once in 1924, when the all India 39th Congress session was held.

“Those were the days when every year the Congress would have a new president. How much things have changed since!  Nowadays, party presidentship seems to have become a family monopoly, and that too for life!” he goes on to write.