India, Nov. 17 -- The first family of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was already unravelling after ill-health forced the patriarch, Lalu Prasad, to anoint his younger son, Tejashwi Yadav, as his political heir. This time, after assembly poll results that were disastrous for the RJD, daughter Rohini Acharya went public against her younger brother. This political soap opera is not unique. Every family-run political enterprise in India has undergone this spectacle at some point in its history, the script of which emerges from the structural flaws of these party organisations.

The business of politics is like in any family-run enterprise: Transition in the leadership of a political family can be torturous unless talent, drawn from the ranks,...