If you had the choice, what should you opt for — being a cabinet minister at the Centre, or the chief minister of a state? There may have been a time when almost any politician of note would have willingly given up a state gaddi for a seat at the high table in New Delhi. Indeed, Y B Chavan was yanked out of the chief ministership of Maharashtra and asked to take charge as defence minister in 1962, and before that G B Pant moved from Lucknow to Delhi. B C Roy was content to remain chief minister in what was then Calcutta, but he was an exception. The political icons of the early years were the ministers in Nehru’s cabinet: Sardar Patel, B R Ambedkar, C D Deshmukh, and so on. And while Indira Gandhi may have been the only man in her cabinet, she toyed with and dismissed chief ministers even more than she did with her cabinet colleagues.
But it is as well to remember that the only naturally high-profile jobs at the Centre are the home, defence, finance and external affairs portfolios, which have glamour value and the ability to dominate the air waves. Leave these out, and the equation changes quite dramatically. For the opportunity to make a mark is more at state level, where the administrative unit is small enough for a strong-willed and focused chief minister to be able to make a difference. No one took notice of Nitish Kumar when he was in New Delhi, but he has now made a reputation for himself as chief minister in Bihar, in just 41 months. The same goes for Naveen Patnaik (anyone remember the portfolio he held as a central minister?), who stands tall in Orissa. The examples of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh have been touted often enough, but there are more contemporary examples too, like Narendra Modi in Gujarat—who has outshone all the BJP leaders in New Delhi who saw themselves as the inheritors after the Vajpayee-Advani era. Vasundhara Raje Scindia had a similar opportunity in Rajasthan, but she muffed it. Now there is growing recognition of Shivraj Singh Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chattisgarh. Even Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was beginning to acquire star value, till Nandigram and Singur happened.
In the Manmohan Singh government, Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram are the only ones to have scored on the visibility index. Among the others, Lalu Prasad at railways made a mark, Mani Shankar Aiyar hit the high notes for a while before disappearing into one of the bhavans of the capital, and Praful Patel promised a lot but sullied his reputation and left behind an aviation sector that is deep in a financial hole. Several other portfolios had the potential to show a good job done—power, petroleum, telecommunications, mining. But these have been notable for either inaction or scandal. Either way, ministerial reputations have not been made. Indeed, Sheila Dikshit as the chief minister of Delhi has made more of a reputation for herself in the capital than the overwhelming majority in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.
The key of course is that the chief minister is numero uno, unlike a cabinet minister. The canvas may be smaller, but the power is more real—underlining the point that it may be better to be a big fish in a small pond than the other way round. And this comes through most clearly when you apply the test of time. Yesterday’s leaders who are remembered in towns and villages across the country are far more likely to be chief ministers than central satraps—Pratap Singh Kairon in Punjab, C N Annadurai in Tamil Nadu, and N T Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh.