I have piled on Sagarika Ghose earlier, but I must give credit when she is right. I think that she is essentially right here. I had written earlier that
Very few politicians have tried to break out of this cycle, and I believe that the person with the greatest chance of succeeding is Modi.
The other person who is succeeding is Naveen Patnaik. Neither Modi nor Patnaik has an immediate chance of succeeding at the national level, but then, I’d expect a vacuum at the national level for the next few years anyway. In the next few years, I believe that we will see many more of these presidential Chief Ministers, i.e. Chief Ministers who bypass intermediaries and forge a direct contract with their constituents. The contract is: I provide you good governance and you vote for me. This will replace the multi-level contracts based on various caste allegiences that are now the norm. The Central Government will be a confederacy installed by these Chief Ministers.
And, this is something for the BJP to think of. 15 years ago, the BJP would have been the natural place for all these Chief Ministers to be in ( or be in alliance with). Now, it is no longer true. Karnataka is one place where they are really badly screwing up. There, if you had a presidential Chief Minister like Modi, they could have achieved a permanent majority just as they have achieved in Gujarat. Instead, they have Yedyurappa.
Also, this moral policing is a bad mistake. If you are wondering how this point is related to the previous ones, trust me, it is related. I have just skipped a few steps in the reasoning.
What about TN? Could you say we’ve had presidential style CMs? Good governance is one issue…
–> “In the next few years, I believe that we will see many more of these presidential Chief Ministers”
Lets say next few years is 10? Who are the other “presidential chief ministers” that you believe will make it? They should be in the fray already, I’d think?
In that case, what is the likelihood that Modi himself will break away from the BJP? Given that the big national parties have a history of the national executive interfering at the state level to cut down challengers.
Also, the bit in the article where SG talks about how it takes an outsider to effect change reminds me of Dilli-6.