The Hindu Business Line : <I>Parochial Ministers </I>

Many of the public statements of Ms Jayalalithaa, based as they are on her own 10 years' experience as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, hit the bull's eye as regards both content and reasoning. She recently went for the Union Minister of Information Technology and Communications, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, charging that he spent most of the time in Tamil Nadu, neglecting his responsibilities to the rest of the country as a Central Minister. It applies equally to most of the 12 Ministers from Tamil Nadu in the Central Cabinet who are prone to this weakness of constantly moving around within their native State, and that too, often within their own constituencies.

It is pointless to single out Ministers hailing from Tamil Nadu alone. For example, Ghani Khan Choudhury as the Railway Minister seldom stirred out of his district (Malda) where he concentrated the bulk of the investments and facilities of his Ministry. There have been no reports of even Mr P. Chidambaram, one of the more cosmopolitan and sophisticated of Ministers, being in the habit of visiting far-flung State capitals. Only the President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, take off occasionally to distant corners and are at home everywhere.

Indeed, for nearly 20 years, there has been no Union Minister who has identified himself with the whole of India. The position has worsened ever since regional parties began dominating coalitions at the Centre. Non-descript persons find Cabinet berths purely on the say-so of the leaders of those parties, and not because of any notable calibre in their own right.

They are not known outside their own States or parties, and lacking the knowledge of language and culture of other States, and being ill at ease in English, do not feel comfortable dealing with them. They are content to look upon themselves as Ministers of the constituencies from which they are elected and consider it sufficient to keep the voters there happy.

B. S. RAGHAVAN