Futile fury

Something is amiss with the second United Progressive Alliance cabinet. Cabinet ministers are handed power and responsibility; in return they are supposed to dedicate most of their mental space,their political energy,to their ministries. True,in this age of coalitions,it is a little difficult to impose this on some regional parties. Though,even by the standards of regional-party satraps,Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is an offender of the worst sort. This was as clear as ever at her mammoth Lalgarh rally on Monday,one week in the preparation,and which she,as usual,addressed as chief minister-in-waiting. The Railways continue to languish,their modernisation on hold,treated — literally — as a sideline; every move is taken with a view to Writers’ Building,and with little regard for ditching collective responsibility as a member of the cabinet for the possible political gains in reaching out to the Maoists.

Yet while UPA-II’s regional constituents clearly need to be reminded of their Central responsibility,it isn’t quite as much of a shock that they’re straying as it is to see how some Congress ministers at the Centre are behaving almost like narrowly focused regional-party satraps themselves. Consider,for example,recent events in Karnataka. A 16-day,320-km “Save Karnataka” march from Bangalore to iron ore-rich Bellary district concluded with a massive rally on Monday. The march itself was nominally led by state Congress leaders — Siddaramaiah,R.V. Deshpande and D.K. Shivakumar. But the rally that wound things up,which an estimated two lakh people attended,featured a galaxy of protesting cabinet ministers,all with a Karnataka connection. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna,Law Minister Veerappa Moily,Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge,and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad,who is the All India Congress Committee’s pointperson for the state.

The trouble with this approach was summed up in Moily’s speech. He told the rally,constituted of people protesting “illegal” mining,about the legal structures that need to be put in place to control it. But isn’t that already his responsibility? If it can be done,why was the rally necessary? The march “will not be an exercise in futility”,he told the crowd. But if he,the man with the power to fix things,was already seized of the necessity to do so,was it not precisely that? The Congress is a national party,and at power in the Centre. Its ministers are expected to be able to see beyond state-level political manoeuvring,and to hold themselves above it.