By Sandeep Shastri: After ensuring a decisive victory in Karnataka, the Congress has to face multiple obstacles in the formation of the government. The first major step has been crossed in settling the leaders who will occupy the position of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister.
The next major hurdle to cross is the formation of the Council of Ministers. It is believed that one set of ministers would take the oath of office with the Chief Minister and his Deputy while another would be inducted a few days later.
If one were to survey the profiles of the 135 elected MLA’s of the Congress as well as the MLCs of the party, it is noticed that there are close to sixty individuals who aspire to be inducted into the Ministry.
Of them, interestingly, more than forty MLA’s and four to five MLCs have formerly been ministers in Congress and BJP governments. The positions that are available now in the Ministry are just 32 (the maximum strength of the Council of Ministers can be 34 for Karnataka as per the Constitution).
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So, even among those that have already been Ministers in the past, it would be difficult to accommodate all of them. Besides, there are many new entrants who are aspiring to serve in the Ministry. The Chief Minister and the party leadership would like to ensure a judicious balance between veterans with experience and fresh entrants who bring in a new vision. Arriving at the right balance, combining experience and fresh blood, would be the delicate and complicated task that the Congress leadership faces.
Past experience and current trends indicate that there are five clear factors that are likely to influence the choice of legislators who would be part of the Ministry.
Firstly, one would like to believe that the competence that the entrants into the Ministry would bring in helping implement the key promises that the party has made and ensure effective governance should ideally be a key factor. Many a time, unfortunately, this factor is placed on the back-burner and is trumped by other factors.
Ensuring a regional balance in representation in the Ministry is a second factor. The Old Mysore region, besides Kittur, Karnataka and Bengaluru city have in recent times cornered a lions’ share of positions in the Ministry.
Kalyana Karnataka and Central Karnataka would also be hoping for adequate representation, as would Coastal Karnataka. Within each of these regions, each district would be seeking its fair share of representation.
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There are some districts in which the Congress has done exceptionally well and there may well be an expectation that those districts have a higher representation. Yet, the districts where the party did not do as well would also be hoping for an adequate number of Ministers, especially with a Lok Sabha election being due in less than a year.
There is already a comment being heard that both the new CM and his deputy hail from the Old Mysore region and Northern Karnataka has not been represented in the top leadership in the Ministry.
A third factor that would impact on the choice of ministers is ensuring the right caste balance. The Congress won the elections by stitching together a rainbow social coalition. The dominant castes – Lingayats and Vokkaligas would seek adequate representation.
The Scheduled Castes supported the Congress in significant numbers and leaders from among them would be seeking a fair share of ministry berths. There is already a voice of discontent that the number of Deputy Chief Ministers is being limited to one with no space for Scheduled Castes, Minorities and the Lingayats.
These caste groups would need to be adequately represented in the Ministry with a reasonable number of senior positions. With the Congress winning most of the seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, the representation of this important segment would also been keenly watched.
As mentioned earlier, all this assumes critical relevance as there would be a Lok Sabha election in less than a year and the Congress would hope to capitalise on its Assembly performance and send the right message through the balancing of different caste interests in its Ministry.
A fourth factor would be the need to balance seniority with new faces. It is here that the Congress leadership would face the biggest challenge. With close to one fourth of the legislators having been ministers in the past, prioritising from among them would be a tricky task.
Deciding who should be the newcomers to the Ministry would also need a lot of balancing. Providing fair gender representations would be yet another priority. No party gave adequate representation to women when selecting candidates. Would the Congress go by a conventional symbolic representation to women, especially when allotting the portfolios?
Finally, the Congress has in the past been marked by intense factionalism. The Ministry would need to provide representation to different factions within the party. These factions all have leaders, and they would surely exert pressure on the Chief Minister and his deputy for including their key supporters.
When the hurdle of regulating and rationalising the gate keeping operation for entry into the Ministry is addressed, the party would have to deal with the next hurdle of deciding on the portfolios of those included. This is often an equally vexed process as deciding who should be in the ministry. All the above five factors would be in play even when deciding who gets which portfolio.
Portfolio’s critical to the implementation of the promises of the government would be critical as the assessment of the government performance would be linked to the concerned ministries.
How does the leadership deal with the `challenge of plenty` and too many aspirants for too few positions? A tall order for any Chief Minister!
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