Uphill task

Can the new Uttarakhand CM get a grip on a faction-hit state BJP?

A change in leadership,especially one imposed from the top,just ahead of polls is always a risky gamble. To go by the inherent logic of democratic politics,what could not,or was not,done for months,even years,is not easy to bring home in a last-minute damage-control exercise,well into the last lap of a governments run. Nevertheless,the replacement of R.P. Nishank by B.C. Khanduri as chief minister of Uttarakhand could well be the BJPs last chance to fix its disorderly house in the state.

The allegations of misgovernance against the Nishank administration as well as the clash of egos within the state unit of the BJP have damaged the party as it prepares for the Uttarakhand

assembly elections in 2012. In fact,the change of chief minister is the BJPs final attempt at getting a grip on the fractured state unit. Khanduri,who returns as chief minister after a little more than two years,will not only have to deliver but do so from the word go. He will have to pull time and circumstance to be on his side,and use all his experience to do so.

The Uttarakhand problem is,of course,the gap between the hope that saw the formation of the state in 2000 (as Uttaranchal) the same year Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh were carved out of primarily Bihar and Madhya Pradesh,respectively and the political reality that came to pass. The founding principle of smaller states is administrative efficiency and speedier development. That was the case with Uttarakhand too,established on a firm development agenda. In the narrow window that he has,Khanduri therefore has to get cracking.