Rahul imprint clear in Karnataka CM's selection -Governance Now

Rahul imprint clear in Karnataka CM's selection

Create the system and run it, the Congress vice-president had said at the Jaipur conclave this January. But will it herald a new beginning?

Trithesh Nandan | May 11, 2013

The thumb’s up: Siddaramaiah flashes the victory sign after becoming the Karnataka chief minister in Bangalore on May 10.

The selection of Siddaramaiah, who led the Congress party’s battle against ruling BJP in Karnataka, as chief minister of the state is something unusual in Congress’s top-down style of working. A party known for taking decisions from 10-Janpath over the last many years, it sprang a surprise by initiating a secret ballot in picking Siddaramaiah as the chief minister.

Also read: How BJP lost the plot in Karnataka

The Congress has always had its chief minister selected by the party high command in New Delhi — in fact, it’s a trend popularised by Indira Gandhi, who selected chief ministers of her own choice.

And it became a norm since.

Who can, for instance, forget how Vilasrao Deshmukh was selected as chief minister of Maharashtra after the last assembly elections in Maharashtra? While the party, in an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) emerged victorious under Sushil Kumar Shinde, it was not Shinde but Deshmukh who became the Congress legislative party (CLP) leader, thereby leaving many shocked.

But Karnataka’s was the first election fought, and won, since elevation of Rahul Gandhi as the party’s vice-president as also in-charge of the 2014 elections. In his speech at the All India Congress Committee session in Jaipur on January 20 this year, Gandhi gave a direction on how future leaders would be selected. Talking about decentralisation in decision-making in the party, the Gandhi scion said, “There should be new process of choosing leadership. For that, we need a proper system and information. In the party, a particular thing doesn’t happen because leaders don’t want it and also because there is no system in place.

“You (leaders) should create the system and run it.”

So when Siddaramaiah moved a resolution during a meeting of the new legislators after the results were declared, requesting that selection of the CLP leadership be left to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he was shot down — and only to emerge victorious eventually. With the Rahul imprint in running the party visible since the Jaipur session, the central leadership in a quick move rejected Siddaramaiah’s move and asked the legislators to convey the message through a secret ballot. And the new legislators favoured Siddaramaiah as their leader, and the state’s next chief minister.

The Congress has started a new move but will other parties, especially the BJP, learn from it and democratise the administration process further?

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