Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

Joshi faces his first challenge

When you are chief minister, or prime minister for that matter, it is a matter of course that you keep running into challenges, mostly from antagonistic persons and parties. It is quite rare that a chief executive is thrown the gauntlet from within, primarily because, by virtue of being leader of the legislature party, s/he is a unanimous choice. But challenges there have been, like Shankarsinh Vaghela's in Gujarat which culminated in the dissection of the Bharatiya Janata Party there.

And that, more often that not, is how inner-party challenges end. Whether it was Vishwanath Pratap Singh declaring open season on Rajiv Gandhi or Vaghela, the challenger has had little choice but to leave the parent organisation. Simply because there is no room for two swords in a scabbard.

Against this background, the open defiance shown by Maharashtra's Housing Minister Suresh Jain, a new entrant to the Shiv Sena, is one of a kind. His carefully chosen verbal fusillade against Chief Minister Manohar Joshi's style of functioning -- taking care all the while to pay obeisance to party supremo Bal Thackeray -- has had the desired effect.

Joshi, who has learnt to battle the Opposition's gameplan quite well, is at a loss for a coherent reaction. Yes, he has been able to say that those who are feeling stifled in the state ministry can revert to organisational work. But that is not what the party chieftain has in mind.

And that is where the Congress culture comes in. Suresh Jain is, after all, a dyed in the wool, whose exposure to the Shiv Sena culture, or the lack of it, is of recent vintage. He is no newcomer to challenging the leadership even while taking care not to overstep his limits, for that is something Congressmen are expected to perfect in the course of their routine march towards power.

And what is aiding the practice of such tactics in the Sena is its difference with the Congress. In the latter, it is almost always the prime vote-catcher who is elected legislature party leader. In the Sena, however, the vote-catcher has chosen to retain the remote control in his hands even while anointing his chosen one as the chief minister. In this kind of a set-up, it is not very difficult to challenge the incumbent -- if only you would take care not to offend the supremo for that would be indiscipline. Jain has realised this, and done just that.

But the fact remains that even while he has taken care to pay his respects to Thackeray, Jain has violated the unwritten code of governance according to which all disputes will be first settled within the cabinet and differences, particularly with the chief minister, will not be aired to the media before being raised with the incumbent. The Sena, a disciplinarian party, has so far conformed to this code, and Jain has become the first to violate it.

Thackeray, of course, is yet to see in this light. He has obviously been blinded by the fact that Jain has made the correct noises in his direction, but it is only a question of time when the fact dawns on him, when he will be forced to take action against the minister. Not doing so will embolden other ministers to emulate Jain and get away, and in no time will the Sena house resemble the Congress.

What Jain's action has done, by questioning the chief minister's style of functioning, is to weaken his position. Joshi, for all his sins, is not a power-hungry politician, nor is he immune to pinpricks -- heaven knows that he must be subject to enough from the hand that wields the remote control without having to countenance the same from his subordinates. There is a certain code of conduct enjoined on the cabinet in a parliamentary form of democracy, prime among which is that the cabinet is collectively responsible for the decisions of the government. Jain has cast the first stone at this practice.

Hopefully, he will be the last.

There are now two courses the dispute within the Sena arm of the government can take. One, of course, is for Jain to apologise for his intemperate outburst and await the chief minister's and the chieftain's decision on his fate. What would be keeping in with the Sena tradition will be to make an example of a bad apple, for that is what ex-Congressman Jain has turned out to be.

The other would be escalation of hostilities, with neither the chief minister nor Jain relenting in their views, and Thackeray, mollified by the fact that Jain has not said anything negative about him, taking a rather mild view of the entire episode. There is a remote possibility of this happening, but then you never know what the ego can make otherwise rational men do.

Jain is in a peculiar situation. He lacks the pan-Maharashtra image needed to effectively challenge the chief minister, and he also lacks the savvy and the tools to cultivate just such an image. He is a renegade from the Congress party, to which he could go back only with his tail between his legs. There is no way he can hope to emulate V P Singh or Vaghela, and the sooner he realises that, the better it will be for him.

It he continues in the present vein, disrupting what is in effect a serious attempt at eliminating the party to which he belonged till not so long ago, the conclusion is inevitable, that he is still dancing to the tunes of his erstwhile political masters, that he is a mere Trojan horse. How he wants to be perceived, is a decision that only Suresh Jain can make.

Tell us what you think of this column