The Chief Ministers in several States are a harried lot, unsure of their longevity in office

Most Chief Ministers in India today are a harried lot. Captain Amarinder Singh, for instance, felt “humiliated” by the way he was told to go. He resigned as the Punjab Chief Minister but is still with the Congress. Now “they can name as CM anyone they want”, he said, betraying his hurt. He is the first Congress Chief Minister in recent years to be sacked in a machination typical of the party. It is déjà vu of the 1980s and 1990s when the Chief Ministers in Congress-ruled States called themselves State guests, certain that the “high command” would any day parachute their replacements. The modus operandi has not changed. The only difference today is that the Congress is left with very few Chief Ministers to replace. Three, to be precise. Such is the fear of the parachuting business, even the Chief Ministers with the majority of MLAs supporting them are apprehensive. The Punjab example would surely have stirred some fears in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The BJP is not far behind when it comes to playing the replacement game. Vijay Rupani, Trivendra Singh Rawat, Tirath Singh Rawat and BS Yediyurappa were asked to resign in Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Karnataka. In Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal was asked to shift to Delhi, giving the job to Himanta Biswa Sarma after the Assembly elections. After Narendra Modi came to power, as many as 22 Chief Ministers were handpicked and sent to the BJP-ruled States, confirming who the Chief Ministers are beholden to.

A Chief Minister’s post, as these incumbents would have realised by now, is not dependent on their abilities to govern or garner the backing of legislators. It entirely depends on the party leadership’s primary intent of winning elections and, thereafter, tackling dissent. Many of these Chief Ministers share certain characteristics. Not all of them are leaders in their own right or have a mass base or caste-based support the party cannot ignore. Many are novices where party politics is concerned. Nearly all of them are of seasonal utility for their leadership. On the other hand, those who have these abilities make Chief Ministers of a different kind. Two kinds, actually. One, like the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, the mass-based leader who was not overawed by the “high command” because he wielded the power to singlehandedly deliver the State to the Congress in two successive elections. He made a satrapy of the party in the State, took care of the party’s national coffers and brooked no interference from Delhi. The other kind is the regional satrap, who branched out from a national party only to wipe its presence from a State, introduced a brand of individualised politics and who is her/his own “high command”. These Chief Ministers, whether in Telangana, West Bengal, Odisha or Tamil Nadu, are in a position to eventually introduce the principle of heredity in their States; thus no less powerful or dynastic than their former “high commands”.