There was a time, in the reasonably distant past, or more specifically the 1950s, when India’s first prime minister thought it beneath his dignity to campaign for assembly elections. Such was Jawaharlal Nehru’s immense popularity and so widespread was peoples’ affections for him that assembly elections were best left to powerful Congress satraps, who managed to handle things in their bailiwick with consummate ease – Govind Ballabh Pant in UP, KB Sahay and others in Bihar, Bidhan Chandra Roy in Bengal, Pratap Singh Kairon in Punjab and others who saw no good reason for the prime minister of the country to come campaigning for what were purely local elections, aimed to put into place a local government.