The Congress was quick to taunt the BJP for not repeating Shivraj Singh Chouhan as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister for a fifth term, going instead for a relatively newer pick in Ujjain MLA Mohan Yadav. “This is how they treat their chief ministers who take their party to victory and are seniors,” said Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi at a press conference on Monday.
But the grand old party’s track record on the treatment of its chief ministers, and even Union ministers, hasn’t been squeaky clean either. While Jawaharlal Nehru preferred to work with strong Chief Ministers, his daughter Indira Gandhi, few months into her prime ministership, became uncomfortable with assertive Chief Ministers as well as some of her own powerful ministers.
The most ruthless was her dismissal of close aide and Union Civil Supplies Minister VC Shukla two minutes into a meeting she called him for early in the morning. In the 11 years of her rule between 1966 and 1977, at least seven Chief Ministers were dismissed by her as she was not comfortable with their power.
Sonia Gandhi’s tenure as Congress chief began well. But there have been instances where she fell for the ‘wrong advice’, especially when aides told her that some Chief Ministers with a mind of their own could spell trouble for the central leadership. This is increasingly the case as the party finds itself weakening at the national-level.
The most powerful Congress CM that Sonia Gandhi had to contend with during her leadership of the party was Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister R Rajashekhar Reddy. Following Reddy’s death in a plane crash in 2009 while still in office, the party just withered away in Andhra Pradesh. Rajashekhar Reddy’s cult following was said to be one of the reasons why his son Jagan Mohan Reddy was not made CM after his father’s death. The top brass was reportedly advised that he too could become as powerful as his father. The party’s experiments with appointing amicable and docile chief ministers like K Rosaiah and Kiran Kumar Reddy ended in disaster, and the Congress has not won Andhra Pradesh since.
In 2005, Bhajan Lal, who was the strongman of Haryana politics, was not repeated as CM despite the party winning. The party chose Bhupinder Hooda instead. Bhajan Lal never forgave and forgot. It’s been a series of experiments in CMs since then.
However, the most glaring and recent example of the party cutting a powerful Chief Minister to size has to be that of Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab. A man with a mind of his own, who repeatedly opined that Rahul Gandhi has a long way to go in politics, Singh was eventually forced to resign. The reason cited was that he worked in a coterie and had lost support of his MLAs.
But those with access behind the scenes say the MLAs would happily have worked with the Captain had it been conveyed to them that the party leadership had no issues with him. Charanjit Singh Channi was made the Chief Minister and the CM face in elections, making it easy for rival Aam Aadmi Party to storm to power. Weak, almost subservient to the high command, Channi lost his gaddi (seat) and Punjab for the Congress.
As the Congress weakened nationally in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, so did its ability to dictate terms on who can be CM. Political compulsion tied the hands of the Gandhis. Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and Siddaramaiah were made CMs in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, respectively. This gave rise to more dissent and showed that the Gandhis could not always get their way.
Apart from Siddaramaiah in Karnataka, the Congress has two chief ministers in the saddle now – Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu in Himachal Pradesh and Revanth Reddy in Telangana. There’s no denying that the two are in top posts, but is also evident that both Sukhu and Reddy are Gandhi family loyalists and unlikely to break ranks. So while Congress can claim to pick grassroot chief ministers, loyalty is a big deciding factor.
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