Opinion It’s still a long way to CM post for Jyotiraditya

There is always the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip,especially so in the grand old party.

September 5, 2013 01:08 AM IST First published on: Sep 5, 2013 at 01:08 AM IST

With his appointment as the Congresss campaign committee chairman,Jyotiraditya Scindia may have emerged as the partys face in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh,but the post does not,ipso facto,mean his projection as the chief ministerial candidate. There is always the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip,especially so in the grand old party.

In the recent Karnataka Assembly elections,the party had appointed Veeranna Mathikatti as the campaign committee chief but few heard of him thereafter. Last year,Virbhadra Singh had been appointed Himachal Pradesh campaign committee chief but the veteran leader knew what mattered. He chose to coerce the high command into making him the PCC chief in order to have a say in the selection of party candidates. And,going by the precedence of Karnataka where Siddaramaiah a Deve Gowda loyalist not long ago was elected chief minister through the ballot system as desired by Rahul Gandhi,the one commanding loyalty of a majority of MLAs is likely to get the best shot at the coveted chair in Madhya Pradesh. This debate over chief ministership,of course,hinges on the presumption a big one at that that the Congress may dislodge Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in December.

Attribute it to the emergence of new leadership in the party or to its survival instincts in times of desperation,the party leadership is showing willingness to let go of its high commandist instincts. Few expected Virbhadra Singh to have his way after defying the high command and a defiant Ajit Jogi would have been shown the door long back for cocking a snook at the party leadership by declaring candidates in Chhattisgarh. But the party is now willing to bet on leaders who do not necessarily derive their strength from Delhi Darbar,be it Virbhadra Singh in HP or Siddaramaiah in Karnataka. Scindias projection as the partys face is part of this change of approach in the grand old party. Nobody knows whether the high command would back him all the way up if the party were to come to power in MP. For now though,he is the chosen one from among a galaxy of big leaders to take on Chouhan. The Union minister has a clean image and pan-state appeal,especially among the youth,but the big question is whether he can mobilise his faction-riven party to emerge as a potent opposition and not be just a default programme as Rahul believes his party to be.

Deepak is a senior editor based in Delhi dk.singh@expressindia.com