Political management lacking

About two years ago, Bengaluru was witness to a rare demonstration by parents of school children. The spontaneous nature of the protest was an expression of immense worry after a girl child was allegedly raped by an instructor on the premises of a private school. The issue had rocked the Assembly and everybody in the government was aware that the media, across the country, was focused on the security of the girl child in one of India’s most important cities.

As Chief Minister Siddaramaiah emerged at the gates of the Vidhana Soudha, the media posed the most important question of the day. The answer they got stunned the nation. “Don’t you have any issue other than rape to ask about? There are so many other things happening in the state,” snapped the chief minister. He, of course, got badgered across all sections of media. The message went home that the head of the government was insensitive to issues concerning the people.
To be fair to him, it would be uncharitable to say that the chief minister was oblivious to the pain of the parents. His biggest problem, indeed for the last 35 years, has been that he has not imbibed the art of expressing himself in a manner that does not hurt people, something that his one-time political mentors, late Ramakrishna Hegde and H D Deve Gowda did with ease. Either of them would have communicated sensitivity to the point that their political opponents in the country, not just in the state, would get the clear impression that their governance was superior.
That’s the kind of opportunity that the chief minister had to rise up in the Congress hierarchy when Karnataka was one of the two major states left under the party’s control after the Narendra Modi juggernaut reached Delhi. He could have become the next Y S Rajashekar Reddy in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and practically dictated terms to the party high command. Instead, Sonia Gandhi had to pressure him to order a CBI probe into the suicide of civil servant D K Ravi, as things went out of control.
In his third year in office, he embarrassed the party high command at the national level by wearing the infamous Hublot watch. He gave courage to BJP’s B S Yeddyurappa, who was removed as chief minister on grounds of corruption, to appear like the protector of the institution of Lokayukta. 
Siddaramaiah, who was party to the decision to set up the Lokayukta as a junior minister in the Hegde ministry, simply brushed it aside into mounds of garbage in the state capital by replacing it with the plastic Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). No sooner, he clumsily landed in the pathology lab, promoted by his son, with the unheard of complaint of nepotism, spoiling his relatively clean image. And, then he thought of a vision group for Bengaluru with no urban planners.
CM’s advisorsAll these instances raise the fundamental question whether the chief minister has any advisors. The answer is in the affirmative. It will not be incorrect to say that he holds a “durbar” but, unlike the Maharaja of yesteryears, he does not have the mechanism to check delivery of the (royal) decrees. The members in attendance at this durbar have not changed. If any, they have only reduced, leaving him practically isolated with no one to even defend him in the Assembly. 
Not more than a couple or more ministers, who do not belong to the durbar, have access to speak to him confidentially on a one-to-one basis. The rest have to present their case to the chief minister only in the presence of the durbar, which many find demeaning.
The bureaucracy, which was very excited three years ago about this man with “native intelligence” and an “amazing grasp of numbers” taking charge as chief minister, are a disappointed lot. Many sincere officials believed he would protect them from some ministers coming in the way of implementation of good decisions. When that did not happen, demoralisation was a natural consequence. Many of the examples listed above are indicative of sheer obstinacy on the part of the leader. It is this approach which has converted friends-into-political foes.
At the same time, it would be wrong to say that no work has happened in the last three years of Siddaramaiah’s rule. It will not be visible to the people in urban areas but the fact remains that Karnataka has performed well in delivering some of the most basic necessities to the underprivileged. In fact, the state’s performance has been good to very good in the social sector, like providing milk to children and the award-winning toilet construction programme. Farmers get a fair price with the e-connect of the ma-rket yards. As one senior minister put it: “We have answered all the questions in the exam. But, the handwriting has not been understood by the evaluator.”
The minister is not wrong at all. It simply means that the handwriting should be legible enough to make an impact. There should also be uniformity. There cannot be discrimination between the underprivileged and the middle classes whether living in the rural or urban areas. Or, on the basis of their being backward classes, Dalits and minorities. Ultimately, all of them mean votes if the political party seeks to return to power. 
If Siddaramaiah can afford to discriminate, his party cannot blame Modi from behaving like he would protect the interest of just one religion in a multi-religious society. What is woefully lacking in this government, even at the end of three years, is political management. That's strictly the responsibility of the leader. It is the art of political management which creates the perception among the people to own it as their government.  The present mismanagement will only encourage them to disown it, at the first given opportunity.