Political pundits in Tamil Nadu are hopeful of seeing a Tamil prime minister in 2014 or even earlier with AIADMK projected to improve its representation in next Lok Sabha four times to 32. They also concede that TMC’s number could be even higher at 34. “The race is going to be between Didi and Amma for the next top job in Delhi,” says a Chennai political analyst hitherto known for his pro-Congress views. The feeling is gaining ground among local political observers in the wake of the last assembly election results in the two states and the nation-wide falling image of the Congress party and squabble in the BJP ranks. The growing public perception is that Congress leaders are constantly compromising with the evil to protect the corrupt by misusing top government investigative agencies and undermining civil society.

While an early Lok Sabha poll is seen as a possibility, the Congress party’s desperate attempt to stay in power even with the help of its known political detractors such as SP, BSP, RJD, etc. in the event of a DMK pull-out will make it even more unpopular among electorates. Much will, however, depend on the ability of the two women leaders to retain the political mood currently sweeping their respective states. “The battle against political corruption and misuse of power is won regionally. Nationally, the war is on. The next step is to win that war,’ says V Ramasubramaniyam, a retired top government official. “Much will depend on the life of the present UPA government and the people’s ire against its protective attitude towards corruption and the corrupt.

“The increasing show of arrogance of some top Congress leaders against civil society anti-corruption campaigners is making it unpopular by day. This is despite the fact that at the national level the Congress Party represented only 29 per cent of popular votes in the last election,” the former bureaucrat adds. However, no one wants to hazard a guess about the price Congress may have to pay to keep allies such as DMK and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and for how long. Of course, for the present, both DMK and NCP are firmly with the Congress at the Centre. This could turn out to be more of a liability than an asset for the Congress image in the coming months.

The operational styles of the two powerful newly elected pro-people chief ministers are different. Mamata, the first time CM, has too much work at hand to fight an administrative system and work culture corrupted systematically over a period of 34 long years through an all-pervasive CPM cadre Raj. The alarming state of rural poor with over 2.64 crore people living below the poverty line (BPL), growing unemployment, politicization of education, despicable condition of healthcare services, lack of infrastructure and electricity and falling investor confidence pose a major challenge to Mamata’s will to reverse the social and economic trend. There are no easy and quick solutions to these problems.

The Marxist cadre base is deeply entrenched into the state’s police force and the bureaucratic hierarchy. This has led to rampant corruption, massive revenue leakage and the state’s debt burden. She does not have many able and experienced persons with her to take on the challenge and change the system fast to ensure a smooth and early implementation of her political and economic agendas. She has too many tasks to perform and too many ministries retained under her belt for the daunting job.

Mamata was already ill-advised on the timing of the promulgation of an ordinance to take over the 400-acre Singur land from the Tata Motors after the announcement of the assembly session. Subsequently, legislation to this effect has been passed by the assembly. But, this may take time before it becomes a law. Under the Marxist-led Left Front government, West Bengal has turned into a backward state. To move it forward in a short span is an uphill task. Mamata may take more time to settle down and move the state’s near paralysed economy. This may also restrict her role as a regional satrap to influence the national politics and government. She has to work hard and take time off to mingle with other national political leaders from other regions to project her as a matured and dependable national leader. Her long stints in Parliament and also as three-time central minister should help in this regard.

Jayalalithaa is luckier. A three-time CM, she has a strong following in the administration and the police. The new Tamil Nadu CM had gotten into the act faster than her counterpart in Bengal. The Tamil Nadu assembly session was called much before West Bengal’s. Her political programmes reversing ruthlessly the so-called populist pre-poll DMK decisions such as distribution of one million free TV sets, the state health insurance scheme for the poor and award of many civil contracts took off like rockets without any resistance from any quarter. It was alleged that the pro-poor free TV distribution scheme was intended to benefit the Karunanidhi family-run cable TV network. And, the health insurance scheme was more for the benefit of private hospitals than for the suffering poor. The government has already swung into action against official level corruption leading to revenue leakages. Corrupt commercial tax officials are being taken to task. Some have been arrested.

The Singur-style reopening of the Katchatheevu award issue calling the surrender of the island to Sri Lanka unconstitutional and fixing fee limits of 6,400 private schools to prevent fleecing of students were taken up immediately. Jayalalithaa is for uniform curriculum in schools to break the rich-poor divide in education. The state assembly has adopted a resolution for retrieval of the Katchatheevu island, given to Sri Lanka under a bilateral agreement between the governments of India and Sri Lanka and ratified by the DMK government. The Centre had rushed National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon to Chennai to discuss the matter with Jayalalithaa. The AIADMK’s highly populist and emotional stand on the issue, involving the interest of lakhs of Tamil fishermen, is bound to bring bitterness in the centre-state relations to the advantage of Jayalalithaa in so far as her further rising public acceptance rating is concerned.

On the economy front, Jayalalithaa has already announced several new power projects to raise the generation capacity by 10,000 MWs within next five years for a fresh push to industrialization and higher farm output. She is pushing hard with the centre for a Rs. 40,000 crore bail-out package for the power sector alone. Tamil Nadu is the country’s third largest industrialized state. The credit partly goes to Jayalalithaa for her tremendous push to automobile, engineering, food processing and power sectors during her previous term as the chief minister. She enjoys the confidence of the business community as a champion of development. But, her image needs a makeover, from a strong Tamil CM to a dependable national leader who could be trusted by other regional parties for the job of the country’s next prime minister. This won’t come easily if she spends all her time in Tamil Nadu.

Mamata’s job, on the contrary, is extremely daunting, with regard to the rebuilding of the West Bengal economy from the scratch. While the state’s agricultural production has been stagnating, industry has long been in the reverse gear. The unholy nexus between a group of local business houses and the erstwhile state government had stunted West Bengal’s industrial growth and expansion. Some of these business houses had long been subtly campaigning in various national forums to prevent ‘outsiders’ from setting up enterprises in West Bengal to keep their vice like grip over the government and the state. The nexus has to be demolished fast.

The performance of the state’s power sector, led by a private monopoly, has been one of the worst. The private utility company was fully protected by the LF government for years and was encouraged to siphon off huge funds to diversify into soft businesses such as retailing, cotton spinning, real estate development and healthcare. No objection was ever raised against its procurement policy, which subsidized some of the group companies based in Mumbai. As a result, the utility company, which, under a union law, is allowed guaranteed return on capital investment, is constantly starved of funds. Power tariffs are raised at will with the help of the independent regulator to support other business activities. Ironically, the high power tariff also helps the poorly performing state-run power generation and distribution agencies.

Mamata must discipline the power sector and break the private distribution monopoly in the vast and highly lucrative Kolkata region taking a cue from Mumbai and Delhi. Parts of West Bengal sit close to coal pitheads. This should help the state generate much cheaper power than that in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the country‘s top three industrialized provinces. The state’s hydro-thermal power mix also needs to be improved. Mamata must bring large national and international industrial investors into the state highlighting advantage of the proximity of industrial raw materials such as iron ore, coal, bauxite, dolomite and abundant supply of water.

Mamata needs to put a strong and reliable team of doers in place fast to implement her pro-poor and pro-people policies and programmes that would partly unchain her from the affairs of West Bengal to play a greater and more active role in national politics if she is mentally prepared to take up a bigger challenge by 2014. She could become a natural choice for the next prime minister’s job if the situation so demands. (IPA Service)