The lesson Ramachandra Gowda taught us

Finally Mr Ramachandra Gowda was shown the door by the chief minister who probably was left with no other option — particularly after details of all that could go wrong in recruitments in medical colleges emerged from inquiries within the government and after the high court made pretty caustic comments about the way the entire issue was handled.

That the medical education minister was a reluctant party to the decision to get him to put in his papers is there for all to see.

Short of being thrown out kicking and screaming like a kid, he did every thing to protest his innocence. Even if he was innocent — we will know about that soon enough because of the case pending in the court — it is very obvious that he was culpable for not taking any steps to correct the wrongs.

Other than blaming vested interests for putting him in a predicament, he did little to right the wrong in what is patently a scam of the first order. It is not only out-of-turn appointments in two medical colleges and bending every rule to do that that the minister seemed to be fully supportive of.

The suspicion is that there were many other scams in his department and that those close to him benefited enormously by filling up non-medical vacancies in these colleges, hiring people for posts that were not there or hiring those who were not qualified for particular jobs.

While it might be fairly useful for the government to look into all these cases, the suspicion that remains to be addressed is that there possibly exist cases of similar wrong doings in other ministries and departments as well. Now, in the face of lack of specific complaints, the government will argue that it can’t go on a fishing expedition. That might be logical up to a point but such suspicions need to be addressed and there certainly is a case for a critical and detailed examination of all ministries because what is involved finally is public faith and public money.

All the more reason for a serious midterm review of all ministries because Ramachandra Gowda is not the first one to go under
such circumstances. There were at lease two other cases before him forcing the exit of ministers.

Come to think of it, the number of ministers who were shown the door for some reason or other in this particular dispensation is not insignificant. There were five ministers before Gowda even if you were to count Shobha Karandlaje out of that list. There were no personal charges against her and she became a casualty because of her proximity to the chief minister and may have given the impression that she was more powerful than other ministers.

Most others went out under a cloud. So far, six ministers had to resign and the seventh one, the social welfare minister, was moved out to another ministry because he was seen as inefficient.

Seven ministers in less than three years is a fairly large number and is a sufficiently strong comment on the level of performance of the ministry. That is what makes a compelling case to figure out if there are many other equally bad eggs. There are several high-profile but non-performing ministers in the cabinet and that is there for all to see. Weeding out deadwood is always a huge challenge because, in the first place, incompetent leaders come to occupy positions on account of their clout, derived because of support by caste lobbies, and not ability. That is why a degree of incompetence gets built into the system and chief ministers get an opportunity to correct that, often only partially, at the time of reconstitution of the Cabinet.

Such an opportunity seems to be available to Yeddyurappa pretty soon. If there is no major surprise in the results of the two by-elections, the chief minister may have to go in for an expansion of his ministry and what he does will be an indicator of the seriousness of his intent. It is a tough task on hand and most chief ministers fail the litmus test of public opinion because cabinet reconstitutions are not made with public good in mind. Worse, any such exercise creates room for discontent among those denied a shot at a ministerial berth.

That is why it is futile to anticipate a great deal of change in the way the government functions. That is again why every time there is a Cabinet expansion or reshuffle, one counts how many from a particular caste group or how many from a lobby within the ruling party got in.