Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to have a quiet chat with his key allies, the Shiv Sena, the Telugu Desam, the Akali Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan. He could start with Uddhav Thackeray of the Sena, whose cabinet nominee Anant Geete was the first minister in Modi's two-day-old government to make waves with his petulant refusal yesterday (27 May) to take charge of his ministry - Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises. He has since changed his mind, but if his tantrum is a sign of things to come, corrective action needs to be taken.
File photo of PM Modi with Uddav and Aditya Thackeray. PTI
Since Geete's petulance could only have been the result of what Uddhav Thackeray has whispered in his ear, Modi needs to do some of his own whispering in Thackeray’s ears to get the latter to wake up and smell the coffee. The Sena thinks that because it has 18 MPs in the coalition, it needs to have a proportionate share of key ministries and power. Outside commentators, including some in the media, have suggested that the BJP is flexing its muscles with allies because it does not need them to run a government.
But this is not the point. A majority of its own may enable the BJP to assert itself with allies, but what the allies have failed to note is the paradigm shift that has taken place in the polity - which is what brought the Modi-led NDA to power in the first place.
Expectations from the government are high, and the people are demanding governance and performance – not excuses. They may tolerate a bit of corruption, but not incompetence and failure. The only way the NDA can deliver on these expectations is by shifting the political imperatives of coalition management from the old approach of sharing the spoils of office to one revolving around delivery of governance.
In this context, the allies need to ask themselves: what can my minister deliver in terms of governance and policy-making skills which Modi will consider useful? Uddhav Thackeray needs to ask his minister to deliver what the country needs, and not ask Modi to deliver what he demands. Uddhav. He needs to tell Geete - who had not exactly distinguished himself in terms of performance in the Vajpayee ministry - to focus on doing a good job in the allotted ministry before demanding a more challenging ministry.
Uddhav and the other allies also need to know that Modi is not using a different yardstick for judging his own BJP ministers. Many old faithfuls have been kept out to give MPs with a greater hunger for performance a chance to prove themselves. Experience of past office is no guarantee of performance in the current environment.
Uddhav thus needs to think which Sena member is competent and capable of delivering good governance before demanding more ministries for his party. In the arbitrary decision-making world of his late father Bal Thackeray, the Sena pulled out the high-performing Suresh Prabhu from Vajpayee's ministry and inserted Geete. In his own Sena-BJP government in the 1990s, Bal Thackeray removed Manohar Joshi as Chief Minister for no particular reason and injected the less credible choice of Narayan Rane - who happily quit the party when the Congress offered a better deal once the Sena lost power.
The days of arbitrary decision-making are over. India is demanding more from its politicians and Uddhav Thackeray has to focus on this issue too. To get more ministerial berths he has to offer more credible candidates to Modi and show him what they can do for the NDA's performance scorecard. Ministerial berths cannot anymore be just about power, pelf and patronage. Those days are over. Geete should pipe down and get to work. He has a lot to prove before he can demand more.
What applies to the Sena applies equally to the other allies – and most of them seem to get it, at least the power-shift part. If they have not made a fuss, it at least shows that they have acquired some maturity in how they deal with the issue.
Perhaps, Chandrababu Naidu is Modi’s best ally, as both leaders have been pro-development and governance in their own states. Together they can change the way parties and politicians think about power. It’s about using it to deliver the goods, not load oneself with goodies.
Coalition dharna for more ministries is out. The new coalition dharma is about performance.
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