The Prime Minister is right in asking his ministers from Rajya Sabha to enter Parliament through Lok Sabha following the 2024 general elections
The Prime Minister indicated that those who complete two terms as Rajya Sabha members and remain as a part of the Council of Ministers should identify the seats of their choice well in advance and contest the 2024 general elections. As per our constitution, it is not mandatory for the Prime Minister and his council of ministers to be members of the Lok Sabha alone. Although a bill can pass only when it sails through the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, it is the members of the Lok Sabha who alone can vote in confidence or no confidence.
The Prime Minister’s hint has a larger meaning in the context of the BJP's organisational structure. For all that matters, the BJP is a cadre-based party, and its top leaders of the past and present have never shied away from facing the electorate, irrespective of the outcome. This is where it is different from left-wing parties—another cadre-based party. The politburo members or intellectual lot of the left parties have not been facing the electorate for reasons known to them, and they prefer to remote control the party and its legislatures and ministers, thereby enjoying power without accountability.
There are many inferences that can be drawn from what the PM said. The BJP does not have separate wings for intellectuals, administrators, and partymen like the left parties. There are no watertight compartments in which each group of partymen lives and works separately. Although RSS is the ideological parent of the BJP, RSS functionaries neither contest elections nor want to become legislators or ministers, unless otherwise asked by RSS to join the BJP and work for the party. Even then, they may work for the BJP without partaking of the fruits of election contests, victories, or ministerial berths. The BJP, however, gives tickets to new entrants to the party for various reasons, including their individual popularity, winnability, and what they can bring to the table during elections.
The BJP functions like the Mansabdari system of Emperor Akbar. As per the Mansabdari system, everybody is a soldier first and then only anything else. That is, even if they enter civil posts, they are liable to be transferred to military posts and participate in the war on behalf of the Empire. Every Mansabdar is supposed to maintain an army, which should participate in the war as a battalion of Akbar’s army when the emperor wants them to participate while waging a war against any territory.
The mansabdar was given revenue collection rights over the land allotted to them (Jagirdars) and given honorary titles like Amir, Amir-al-Kabir, Amir-al-Umara, and Raja. They also became members of the emperor’s court. There is no distinction between Raja Todarmal, the finance minister of Akbar, and Birbal, the Mukhya Senapati of his court and a man of wit and wisdom. When Akbar sent Birbal and his army to quell the rebellion of the Yusufzai Afghan tribe, the poor Brahmin Birbal, who does not know the art of warfare, and his 8000 soldiers lost their lives in the Battle of Malandari Pass. In a democracy, success and failure in elections are part of the process and do not entail the loss of lives.
In the BJP, everyone is a karyakartha, irrespective of whether he is the PM, CM, or member of the council of Ministers. Party work takes precedence over legislative and government responsibilities in general, and more so during election times. Contesting directly as a candidate from a constituency is the crux of the party’s work. All the top leaders of the party—Vajpayee, Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, and Yogi Aditanath—faced the electorate many times.
Why is the hint from the PM good for the BJP? The first reason is that although there are no visible grudges among the Lok Sabha MPs over the allocation of some of the key portfolios to the Rajya Sabha members, the ember of discontent must be there underneath. It is better to assuage the embers than allow them to engulf the party.
The second reason is that the administrators who get elected through the Lok Sabha keep their ears on the ground by listening to the various views of the electorate and partymen and understanding how their actions as administrators did or did not resonate with the public. Although administrative roles help the ministers learn a lot about the ministry by interacting with senior government officials, field experts, policy experts, unions, and businessmen, they only give one side of the experience. Only when they contest direct elections do they establish a good rapport with the partymen and the public at large.
The third reason is that the administrator role feeds the mind and the candidate role in the direct election feeds the heart, and one role complements the other and hence facilitates a balanced evolution as a politician and administrator, which improves their administrative skills too.
The fourth reason is that although getting elected to the Rajya Sabha may happen indirectly, it all depends on the strength of the party in the state legislatures. For instance, any party could send one Rajya Sabha member only when they have at least 35 MLAs in their kitty in TN, and it varies from state to state. A Rajya Sabha member is not a free lunch for the party, although it may be a free lunch for the individual who gets elected to the Rajya Sabha. Hence, it is important for the administrators to put their necks deep into electoral politics and contribute significantly towards the same. For all that matters, only when the party wins elections does it get an opportunity to govern. In this backdrop, it is no surprise that the PM wanted his Ministers elected through the Rajya Sabha to get elected through the Lok Sabha.
The PM has been leading by example by being the administrator par excellence and being on the first line of defence whenever elections happen in any part of the country. A loss in the direct contest does not alter the ability of the person to become the administrator. When Arun Jaitley and Hardeep Singh Puri lost the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the PM was courteous enough to accommodate them in his cabinet. Given this, the PM has every right to hint that his Rajya Sabha members turned ministers to leave their cocooned spaces and put their best efforts into being elected through the Lok Sabha.
(The author is a Public Policy Analyst)