Fifty years ago, Sardar Patel was the natural choice to head the Home Ministry. So is Advani, who opted for it in preference to the Finance portfolio.

Nehru could be delightfully vague -- and indecisive. So is Vajpayee, who dislikes having to deal with the nitty-gritty of governance. Patel, on the other hand, was known to be brutally precise. Advani, too, is a man of few words, and what he says is carefully enunciated. He once said that in his early years, he shunned public speaking because Vajpayee was such a powerful orator. He began to speak only when he entered Parliament.

Nehru had the support of the masses, the intelligentsia, the minorities and the leftists.Vajpayee has a wide appeal for the masses and the intelligentsia. The left does not exercise the sort of influence it did in the post-Independence years. The minorities make a distinction between Vajpayee and the BJP, and find him acceptable.

Sardar Patel was the strong man of the organisation. So is Advani. He can relax with party colleagues over dinner unlike Vajpayee, who prefers to spend his evenings with family. He is also capable of taking tough decisions and sticking to promises. He had assured Som Pal the Baghpat seat when the Jat leader joined the BJP. But subsequently, Ajit Singh demanded it when he was negotiating with the BJP and Kalyan Singh was keen that he be given it because of the BKKP MLAs whose support he needed. Advani, however held firm.

Sardar Patel was also the darling of the civil service and Kripalani called him "the greatest administrator we had". Soon after the interim government took over in 1946, Patel called a meeting of civil servants to reassure them, following demands thatthe Indian Civil Service be abolished.

Officials in the Home Ministry already look upon Advani with awe. Files sent to him in the morning, they say, are returned within the day. His predecessor often failed to take a decision for months.

Crucially important is the respect that Advani and Vajpayee have for each other, despite their differences. Patel's many differences with Nehru, like referring the Kashmir issue to the UN, are now part of the prized correspondence between the two. But these were never made public.

The two came close to parting company several times -- for instance, on the election of Purushottam Das Tandon as Congress President in 1950. Tandon, Patel's candidate, defeated Kripalani, Nehru's nominee. It was over this episode that Patel told Nehru, "I have known you for 30 years, but I haven't been able to enter your heart." Tandon finally resigned, for it became difficult to run the party. Nehru could assert himself at that time because like Patel, he had a following in theorganisation. While Vajpayee's appeal goes beyond the organisation, he has not acquired a hold in the party.

While the regard that Nehru and Patel had for each other was born of a shared commitment to freedom, with the Vajpayee-Advani team, it is the byproduct of a camaraderie created over long years in the opposition.

Patel and Nehru were lucky to have Gandhi as an arbitrator and both accepted his mediatory role. Vajpayee and Advani have no one like Gandhi to turn to.

Advani (like Patel) has agreed to work under Vajpayee. He had emerged as numero uno after 1990 and the party took giant steps under his leadership. When Advani declared Vajpayee,the party's acknowledged mass leader, as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate at the Bombay session,he too had come to acquire an appeal among the Hindu masses. The idea at the time was to project an alternative Brahmin leadership to Narasimha Rao. But Advani never went back on it, not even when the courts absolved him of the hawala charges.

This would beunthinkable in today's Congress, whereas 50 years ago Patel accepted it with grace, though not without difficulty. It was after Gandhi's death that Patel referred to Nehru as his leader in a moving speech on Gandhi's birthday in 1950. "I have been referred to as the Deputy Prime Minister. I never think of myself in these terms. Nehru is our leader. Bapu appointed him as his successor... I know only this much, and am satisfied that I still am where Bapu posted me." (From Patel: A Life by Rajmohan Gandhi).

The essential difference between the scenarios then and now is one of political culture. The leaders then had to give a public explanation for their actions. There was no scope for decisions behind closed doors. But now, both Vajpayee and Advani have effortlessly glossed over Ayodhya. The country still does not know whether they regretted the demolition of the Babri mosque.

Once Nehru had taken over, Patel, who was 14 years older, was not a contender for the top job because of his age andill-health. As of now, it cannot be said whether Advani will be the successor to Vajpayee or his replacement.

Their complex relationship has been marked by an unstated restraint and magnanimity, and this has helped them transcend the many differences they might have had. At one level both are detached, though both are practical politicians. But then, power does strange things and it remains to be seen how they deal with its problems. It might be recalled that the challenges to the Patel-Nehru team had increased after the Congress formed the government.