Lesson for Guruji

By-elections tend to go little noticed,ignored by all except perhaps the concerned politician and wonkish party strategists. But the Tamar bypoll in Jharkhand will be an exception,and not just for the fact that Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren has lost there by 8000 votes. It will not be misplaced or unkind to remark that Sorens defeat is a victory for democracy for the ideal it aspires to and the mechanism by which it works. The bypoll result is dramatic and significant in that a serving chief minister doesnt lose an election every day. It is no less significant for the defeat it means for a certain kind of politics. It is a politics needing little definition or elaboration,personified as it is in Sorens chequered career,in government and in opposition,both at the state and Union levels. Also,in his performance as the Union minister for coal in two stints. Not to mention his two spells both mired in controversy as the Jharkhand CM,and the criminal cases he has had against him. True,in the Chirudih mass murder case he was ultimately acquitted by a Jamtara local court and the Delhi High Court had decided that the prosecution case about the murder of Sorens secretary had faulty evidence. But how many Union cabinet ministers are convicted of murder even once and how many go underground when faced with a non-bailable warrant?

Soren has left his sordid imprint on whatever he has touched as coal minister,he sat on crucial reforms to throw open coal to the private sector and thereby reduce black marketeering,optimise mining and production,and increase returns. These reforms could be pushed through only when he departed from the ministry. His mineral-rich home state,one that he helped create,was billed to be an industrial success story. Instead,it is a basket case 8212; something Soren and his party are guilty of.

Shibu Sorens career has managed to span four decades till date because of the paradox he is to Indian politics. He has represented the hitherto unrepresented and yet considered himself beyond the call for acceptable political conduct. There are others of his ilk. But the voter,in keeping with trends around the country,has decided to cut short his manipulative tactics. The victory of little-known Gopal Krishna Patar of the insignificant Jharkhand Party testifies to that. Hopefully,those that take after Guruji are watching their step.