Federalism or Patrimonialism: The Making and Unmaking of Chief Ministers in India
1985; University of California Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2644110
ISSN1533-838X
Autores Tópico(s)South Asian Cinema and Culture
ResumoAlthough it is too early to identify, much less evaluate, Rajiv Gandhi's style of administration, the general impression (or expectation) among scholars that he will depart from his mother's style of politics and reinstitutionalize the Nehruvian framework of consensus needs more supporting evidence than what has been provided in the recent selection of eight Congress (I) chief ministers in the aftermath of the 1985 elections in eleven states and one union territory. No doubt the chief ministers were formally elected by the Congress state units in the presence of observers from the Congress high command-a process reminiscent of the Nehru era-but all of them airdashed to New Delhi to finalize the composition of their cabinets, a practice that was invariably followed during Mrs. Gandhi's second tenure in office (1980-84). In the election campaign, Rajiv Gandhi, more like his mother than his grandfather, was unsparing in his attack on the opposition parties. He not only accused the non-Congress state governments (with the exception of the AIADMK Tamil Nadu government, which has good relations with the Congress [I]) of being financially imprudent, but he also emphasized the virtues of one-party rule both at the Center and in the states for greater unity and integrity of the nation.' Of course, he did refuse to take over Karnataka under presidential rule after the resignation of the Ramakrishna Hegde ministry in January and allow elections in the state under Hegde's caretaking non-Congress government (this happened for the first time in the political history of In-
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