Very high command

For Congress chief ministers,it’s the same diffidence,or constraint. Be it someone like Ibobi Singh who has returned as chief minister for the third time and who is widely credited with scripting the Congress’s triumphant return to power with an absolute majority in Manipur,or Vijay Bahuguna who is only the high command’s candidate belatedly foisted on the MLAs after the Congress’s almost-defeat in Uttarakhand,the room for independent manoeuvre or local decision-making,beginning with the selection of ministers,is equally small. If the high command in Delhi is poised to pull most of the strings in the new government in Dehradun,that story is likely to be mimicked in Imphal,notwithstanding the obvious difference in the political stature of the two men at the helm. Even a cursory look at non-Congress chief ministers will show that while they may suffer or shine in comparison to their Congress counterparts,they are,and they are seen to be,more in command.

That difference is crucial in times when the distance from Delhi to the state capitals has never seemed longer. All the big ideas and major governance innovations — be it Nitish Kumar’s bicycle scheme for schoolgirls or the Madhya Pradesh government’s installation of the right to services in the statute book — are coming from states. All the big ideas of the Centre,be it NREGA or NRHM or the right to education,are dependent on implementation by the states. In times like these,parties stunt their state leaderships at their own,and the system’s,peril.