But more than two decades later, Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law today declared that sycophancy had no place in the party under her. The statement came after several party leaders made competitive bids to display what normally could be interpreted as sycophancy.

Senior leader Arjun Singh, often identified as a 10-Janpath man said, ``In whichever direction you set your foot, a new confidence will be created. History will take a new turn.'' In another context, he discouraged party people from seeking clarifications to certain statements by Sonia Gandhi. ``There is so much clarity in her thought that we should not attempt to dilute them through our own viewpoints.''

Perhaps the youngest of the lot, the chief of the National Students Union (NSUI), went a step ahead. ``Sonia Gandhi took a wounded Indira Gandhi to thehospital. Such a brave woman cannot be from Italy. She is very much an Indian.'' Sonia's call to end sycophancy -- almost in the same fashion as Rajiv Gandhi's call in the 1985 Bombay Congress Centenary to rid the party of power-brokers -- came soon while making her valedictory speech.

Before that, many speakers -- notably Amar Rizvi (Uttar pradesh), Priya Ranjan Das Munshi (West Bengal) and P C Chacko (Kerala) -- had stressed that rootless leaders were ruling from Delhi purely on their merit of `sycophancy'. ``I cannot agree more -- that sycophancy has to come to an end. It should have no place in the party. We should mean what we say, and say what we mean,'' she asserted. There were clapping, more from the audience than from the dais. Das Munshi went to the extent of telling her that if she was keen to know the exact cause of the defeat of the party in recent elections, then she should communicate directly with the state-level party workers -- and ``not through the sycophants.'' He said the party had lostserious grass-roots workers in West Bengal because of these types of leaders. Sonia Gandhi did not respond to the other part of his speech -- that all those Congress people who have left the party should be asked to come back.

Even before speakers felt bold enough to air their abhorrence for sycophancy, in a clear disapproval of the style of functioning on the part of frontal organisations, she said they either perform or go.

``They cannot just be there as stepping stones to their political career ahead.''

Suresh Pachouri, chief of the Seva Dal, was clearly at the receiving end. He told the Congress president how the Seva Dal had all along stood behind Indira as well as Rajiv Gandhi in their hours of crisis. ``We will not sleep peacefully till the culprits of Rajiv's assassination are punished,'' he said choosing to ignore Sonia's charge of inefficiency of the frontal organisations.