The former revenue minister of Tamil Nadu hit the headlines on September 21 last year when he was named chief minister following a Supreme Court order disqualifying J. Jayalalitha from holding the post. More than four months have passed since, but O. Paneerselvam is yet to get his second shot at making news. It's enough for the first-time MLA from Periyakulam that the benovelent Amma had zeroed in on him to take the mantle from her for however short a time.

Paneerselvam has no qualms admitting to his lack of accomplishment. In fact, when he took over itself, he made it clear that he was only a "caretaker chief minister" who was there to carry out Amma's orders. "I'll be here only till she returns," he said. Little wonder then that he figures so low on the popularity charts. It made sense, especially since Jayalalitha
wanted it precisely that way.

Living up to his reputation of being "Amma's Rabri", Paneerselvam never signs on the dotted line unless the document has been endorsed by Jayalalitha. Even in absentia, the Lady of Poes Garden continues to dominate party and government functions, leaving none in doubt that she still presides. As if in acknowledgement, the walls of most government offices,
including the CMO, still carry her photograph. Objections were raised initially on the ground that only the pictures of the chief minister and national leaders could be displayed. After a month of much hue and cry, the portraits were replaced with Paneerselvam's but Amma's pictures mysteriously resurfaced within a couple of days. The chief minister was not allowed to make any major announcement other than hiking of prices of essential services and commodities. A day after the Madras High Court acquitted Jayalalitha in the Tansi and Pleasant Stay Hotel cases on December 4, Paneerselvam rolled back the prices in part.
Paneerselvam's loyalty to Jayalalitha is complete and unconditional. He didn't utter a word even when he had to compete with his party cadres to get near her after she was "exonerated" on the judgement day. Even when Amma was on her way to the Theni collectorate to file her nominations for the Andipatti by-election on December 24, the chief minister's car was tailing behind the last vehicle in Jayalalitha's convoy. For the "charioteer", as the low-profile Paneerselvam is referred to these days, it didn't matter. Nor for that matter did another joke doing the rounds in the state: that the "O" preceeding the chief minister's name stood for a zero.

—Arun Ram.

Naveen Patnaik is far from being a media darling. For supposed reasons ranging from his inept handling of the alleged starvation deaths in the state's backyard to his trademark snootiness and near inaccessibility, the introverted Orissa chief minister gets bad press as a matter of routine. But while the media demonises him, nothing as yet has majorly dented
Naveen's popular standing. True, few think he is an outstanding head of state. But to a common constituent, he is as much a clean honest politician as he was when he plunged into politics some years ago. Criticism against him is generally brushed aside as frustrated carpings of those with unfulfilled agendas.

In the nearly two years now that Naveen has been the chief minister, his single-point agenda has been to stay clean. More appropriately, to be seen as clean. His government is slothful and there are few physical results to show. Resentment is gradually rising now against the non-performance of the government. But strangely, the disenchantment is directed more against the other ministers and the bureaucracy than the chief minister himself. The common perception is that Naveen is a man of good intentions and good conduct but is constantly being sabotaged by others.

The sacking of three influential ministers last year helped him to acquire the label of a crusader against corruption. Even now, in the run up to the panchayat elections, Naveen is exhorting voters to keep up the pressure against the corrupt. "I am standing guard in Bhubaneswar. You guard your localities," he says. The crowds sense some sincerity in what is being said. That Naveen has never been a career politician gives him added credibility.
It is after a long time that Orissa has had a clean, credible chief minister. And Orissa remains generally content. That it would have been infinitely better had he been as effective too is altogether a different story.

— Ruben Banerjee

Gujarat
Narendra Modi


PLUSES: Mentally sharp and agile, he is a man in command. Has been able to regain the BJP's credibility in the state and improve the pace of earthquake rehabilitation.
MINUSES: Is seen as a populist chief minister given to political compromise if
need be.

At a video conference last week, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee was telling Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, as a matter of routine perhaps, that he should not hesitate to ask if there was anything he further needed, even funds, for the rehabilitation of Gujarat's earthquake affected. No sooner had the words left the prime minister's mouth than Modi, sitting in Gandhinagar, smiled back. Urging Vajpayee to keep the money ready, he said
he would visit Delhi the next day itself to collect it.

The dozen-odd bureaucrats present with Modi were visibly impressed. The chief minister, for all his overbearing and self-righteous ways, seemed like a man in control even where the prime minister was concerned. On their toes ever since Modi took over 110 days ago, the bureaucrats have been trying to ensure that the pace of rehabilitation work improves. Even during Diwali, they were asked to forego their leave and spend time with the quake-affected. For Modi himself, the first 100 days in office have been marked by personal visits to more than 90 of the 182 state assembly constituencies, besides the launch of two Lok Kalyan melas to disburse the benefits of the government's welfare schemes. All this has no doubt earned him the reputation of a being a populist chief minister but he believes he is only identifying himself with the common man.

On the political front, he did invite criticism when he made Revenue Minister Vajubhai Vala his chief campaigner after making him vacate his Rajkot II seat to facilitate his bye-election and stripping him of his ministership on grave charges of corruption. The move sent a clear message that when it came to making political compromises for personal benefit, Modi
was no better than others. But for the moment, the chief minister has been successful in checking the anti-BJP tirade in the state. If he wins the bye-elections, which most feel he easily will, he will emerge more powerful. But whether he will be able to retain power for the party in the assembly polls next year is still not very certain.

—Uday Mahurkar

Kerala
A.K. Antony

Pluses: A clean image, he showed a readiness to embrace reforms.
Minuses: Perceived as a man of inaction, a quitter. Recession has got the better of his reforms with the result that they have few takers in the state.

Arakkalparambil Kurianpillai Antony has always been caught between two stools. Despite his Mr Clean image, he is known to be a "man of inaction", a "quitter", given his string of resignations from key posts at crucial points of time in the past. When he took over as chief minister of Kerala for the third time, however, he was determined to deliver. The state was on
the brink of a financial diasater with industrialisation still far away, agriculture in a shambles, unemployment soaring and public debt on a record high.

A confirmed Nehruvian socialist, Antony knew he had to take bold decisions to make amends. He wanted to go the S.M. Krishna way, so he invited the Congress' pro-reform gurus like Manmohan Singh and Jairam Ramesh to Kerala to offer prescriptions for its economic ills. Within six months in power, he had paid heed to their advice. He initiated a spate of pro-market reforms, opened up the professional education sector, ushered in legislations to
discipline labour and vowed to desubsidise services like power and transport. But all these lofty measures seem to have only backfired for the chief minister.

To a large extent, it is the circumstances that Antony finds himself in that are to blame. His unprecedented reforms demanded that people tighten their belts in return for the promise of a better life in the distant future. But for a state already reeling under recession, a crash in agricultural prices, falling foreign remittances due to increasing reverse-migration from the
Gulf, Antony's pills meant further misery.

But far from acknowledging the problem, Antony only went ahead with his agenda. He took on the 5.5 lakh government employees and teachers and declared that the salaries and pensions being paid to these "slothful sections" was the biggest drain on the economy. He scrapped many of their privileges like leave surrender encashment and low interest loans and even deferred the payment of salaries. The reaction was swift. The employees, irrespective of political differences, have now vowed to bring Antony down on his knees. Not a pretty picture for any chief minister, especially one for whom there lay so much stake in action.

—M.G. Radhakrishnan.

Punjab
Parkash Singh Badal

Pluses: Only Akali chief minister to have completed five years in office. A staunch moderate and a tireless campaigner, he is also seen as a mass leader with a rustic charm.
Minuses: The image of his Government has been severely dented by non-performance and corruption.

Even at the worst of times, the Akalis have an uncanny knack for coining cheeky barbs. One such doing the rounds in Punjab is about their boast about of having a "five-to-eleven" leader (an allusion to Parkash Singh Badal's punishing schedule from the wee hours to late night), while deriding the Congress for having an "eleven-to-five" chief-a taunting allusion to
Amarinder Singh, known for his easy-going campaign.

Such cocky attitude at a time when a perceptible anti-incumbency groundswell is staring the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine in the face, may be stretching credulity for poll pundits who find the Congress breathing down Badal's neck in the race for power. But, Badal, despite being hamstrung by a leg fracture, is pulling out all the stops to live up to his
reputation of being a spirited survivor.

Many had written his political obituary when he led the Akalis' boycott of the 1992 assembly elections ostensibly due to militant threats. But, he bounced back and rode to the power in 1997 as an architect of a social coalition between the two principal communities, the Sikhs and the Hindus, that the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine had come to symbolize in
post-terrorism Punjab.

Five years down the road, Badal's charisma looks wobbly and the image of the alliance dented by non-performance and corruption. Yet, if Badal remains incredibly confident of being in the striking distance of power, it's because of the Congress' inability to match his credentials as a charismatic, hard campaigner. A wheel-chair-bound Badal is clearly ahead in
the campaign. Riding a specially fabricated vehicle, the Akali supremo has already covered one-third of Punjab while the Congress awaits the chopper to kick off Amarinder's electioneering.

A mass-based traditional Akali leader with an uncanny ability to be in sync with the popular mood, Badal is leading from the front. Sensing the anti-imcumbency sentiment early on, he hit upon "sangat darshan" shows last June and distributed cheques worth Rs 700 crore for development works to shore up the Government's image. That has helped him regain some of the lost ground.

Badal is also the first Akali chief minister to have completed five years in power. Despite disenchantment among the urban voters, Badal is still seen by Punjab Hindus as the only moderate Akali leader and as a guarantor for peace. "The man is fanatically moderate," says Badal's close aide and columnist Harcharan Bains. he casts a spell that the Congress leaders cannot match.

The Akali-BJP combine is no doubt on a shaky ground and, ironically, Badal who came to power by striking a symbiotic alliance with the BJP is finding the alliance partner a liability. The BJP has lost out on the Hindu vote, a factor that may spoil Badal's chances in the semi-urban segment. In fact, the BJP may be a bigger spoiler for SAD than G.S. Tohra's Panthic Morcha. But one vote bank that is still siding with Badal is the Sikh peasantry that comprises 29 per cent of the electorate. Economists may frown at his reckless populism but the Punjab farmers still rever Badal as their protector.

—Ramesh Vinayak