ABSTRACT
Wilcox argued, the dominant characteristic of local politics was such that ‘no coherent political community with well-worn practices and an intrinsic “spirit of the house”’ had yet emerged. Yet he agreed that each constituent part had branches of the Congress party that became the building blocks of statewide party organisation, which being composite in character offered little resistance to penetration by exogenous political trends. The single dominant Congress system, working within this larger democratic framework, was the vehicle expected to intervene and penetrate into society and created political integration at the central level and within the states created at independence. While factionalism is a feature of the Congress party in many states, in Madhya Pradesh factions along regional lines since the colonial period give it a loose and decentralised character, which the state and central leadership — that constantly intervenes playing a disruptive role — could not control.
