SM Krishna resigns to usher in ‘new blood’

Outgoing foreign minister to play instrumental role in upcoming election campaign.

NEW DEHLI:

India’s veteran Foreign Minister S M Krishna announced his resignation on Friday in a move that clears the way for a long-awaited reshuffle of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s beleaguered government.

The gaffe-prone Krishna, whose political career stretches back nearly half a century, said he wanted to make way for a younger generation, while a senior member of the main ruling Congress party said Krishna would be playing a leading role in an upcoming election campaign in his traditional fiefdom of Karnataka.

“I am a loyal party worker,” the 80-year-old said in brief comments on the NDTV news channel.

“I will continue to work for the Congress party. I am making way for younger people.”

The resignation takes effect immediately and a senior official in the prime minister’s office said Krishna has cancelled a scheduled visit to Laos, where he was to have accompanied Singh.

Marginal impact

Krishna, who was appointed foreign minister in 2009 after Singh was re-elected prime minister, has been soft-spoken and courteous as a foreign minister, playing it safe at the helm of foreign affairs. It was his first position in cabinet after having held a host of senior positions in the state government of Karnataka since the 1960s.

The minister’s impact on foreign policy was seen by analysts as being marginal, with Singh and his senior advisers taking the lead on crucial issues such as relations with Pakistan.

In 2010, the self-deprecating foreign minister endured some manhandling in Pakistan during the first foreign minister level talks between the two archrivals after the Mumbai attacks.

It was former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who appeared to have gotten the upper hand, accusing Krishna and his delegation of not being ready for dialogue and interrupting talks to take phone calls from Delhi.

Analysts have questioned Krishna’s docile approach in the foreign relations arena, since it wasn’t the first time the minister had held a difficult post in the government. He served as chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka from 1999 to 2004, managing caste and class contradictions with élan.

With challenges in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan – it was thought that Krishna would use the same abilities to manage political contradictions at the global stage, yet, it seems, either he was stymied or unwilling to work the same magic in foreign policymaking in the neighbourhood, analysts suggest.

Corruption charges

Sources in New Delhi have claimed that Krishna’s resignation, however, is not a result of the quality of his work, but rather part of collateral damage by the Congress party after corruption charges were levelled against him during his stint as chief minister in Karnataka. In the prevailing environment, the Congress decided to make a bigger cabinet reshuffle the excuse to secure his resignation, a source said.

The cabinet reshuffle, which reports say could be as early as this weekend, is seen as an opportunity for Singh to bring in new blood and thus revive his party’s prospects in the countdown to national polls due in the spring 2014.

There is speculation that Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma will be named his successor. But sources claim that there is no clarity in political circles as to who will take the coveted job come this Sunday morning.

Polls in Karnataka

Polls in Karnataka are due to be held in May next year and the battle for control of one of India’s largest states is expected to be fierce.

“He wants to go back to his home state and work for the Congress party,” said a senior Congress leader in New Delhi. “He has a stronghold in state politics and the Congress can win the election if he works for the party in the state.”

Gaffe-prone

Krishna hit the headlines in 2010 when he read out parts of the Portuguese foreign minister’s speech at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York.

(With additional input from AFP)

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2012.