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Krishna asks ministers to sign Congress registers

M D Riti in Bangalore

First, he asked them to learn to use PCs and get onto the Net quickly. Now, he has told them to sign registers at their party office.

If Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna manages to implement all his rules, then the Congress party is very likely to become the favourite political party of both the people of Karnataka, and its own party cadre.

Unlike in states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where you can see ministers hanging out regularly at party offices, the ministers of Karnataka seldom step into their party offices unless they are attending a major party meeting or taking sides in battles between party leaders.

Now, Krishna has come down hard on this neglectful attitude of his ministers. He has asked his ministers to spend an hour at a stretch, twice a month, in the party office, meeting party workers and receiving petitions or complaints. Moreover, he has even asked them to sign an attendance register to mark their presence on specified dates!

Krishna himself has already specified which days and at what times each minister should clock in at the newly built Congress Bhavan on Queen's Road in the centre of Bangalore. He himself is at the party headquarters every Monday and Thursday, whenever he is in Bangalore.

The very first week that Krishna's diktat was enforced saw half a dozen ministers holding durbar in the party office. Among them were Mallikarjun Kharge, Rani Satish, Qamrul Islam and Veerkumar Patil. Others who received the grand summons pleaded prior engagements that could not be cancelled at short notice.

When Krishna and Kharge visited the office, they received mostly requests for appointments to boards and corporations. The other ministers were besieged by personal complaints. The ministers mostly said they had forwarded the petitions they received to the departments and officers concerned.

For first-time, out-of-town ministers like Patil, the experience was novel and captivating, as they had never interacted with local party cadres in such large numbers before.

To old hands like Kharge, it was an extension of what they were already doing in their homes in Bangalore, and their ministerial offices, namely receiving countless petitions.

But the party cadre is ecstatic about this endeavour of Krishna to make their elected representatives available to their own party men.

"We are just hoping that Krishna has the courage of conviction to crack the whip and enforce this rule of his," sighed a weary party functionary, waiting in line with his petition. "He will definitely be able to go to polls next time with a very committed party cadre. Let's hope too that the high command will see the efficacy of this exercise, and enforce it in other states."

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