A tale of two lists and more A case of too many
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 24, 2012 -

Thanks to the 97th Amendment of the Constitution of India passed by Parliament at the fag end of 2003, terms like jumbo sized Ministry and defection within Parliament and the State legislatures are today dinosaurs, having seen its days but in a rather strange twist of turns, the cap on the size of the Ministry at 15 pc of the total strength of the Lok Sabha and the State legislatures and putting the strength of the Council of Ministers at 12 in cases of smaller States like Manipur, has given a new dimension to the understanding of scoring a landslide victory.

Manipur fits this description to the T. It is apparent that to the Congress it is a case of too many jostling for a place in a space which has been limited by an Act of Parliament passed nearly a decade back and so it is that even after more than a month of the party witnessing its best ever performance at the hustings, the party is still trying to negotiate its way through the aspirations of its 42 MLAs and by extension the Constituencies they represent.

Four have already made it to the select list of 12, Chief Minister O Ibobi, Home Minister Gaikhangam, Revenue Minister Th Debendra and Health Minister Phungzathang Tonsing.

Arithmetic then says that there are eight vacant slots, for which there are 38 aspirants ! Certainly not an easy task especially when there are so many factors which have to be taken into consideration, which have been painted as political compulsions.

Given the ethnic composition of the State, it has been a case of trying to accommodate all the major ethnic groups in the Ministry and while the merit of going in for such an arrangement is open to debate, this is a point which no political party can afford to overlook.

Another is the districtwise representation and top this off with a slot reserved for women and the Minority section, which does not come under the ST or SC category, and certainly the space to manoeuvre the Ministry composition gets all that more cramped.

And so it stands that while the record breaking performance of the Congress in Manipur went some way in soothing the mauling the party received in other States like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Goa, which went to the polls simultaneously this year, this has ironically proved to be some sort of a speed breaker to the smooth transition from the poll results to the Ministry expansion.

The question of the two lists, reportedly prepared by the Chief Minister and the Home Minister is what has added that extra spice to the speculations and guesses doing the round. Throw in the bits and pieces of politicking and one gets an understanding of real politiks at play here.

A brief recap of the last few days will throw some insight into the politics of confusion that has emerged. First it was the Chief Minister who had to go to Delhi for the twin purpose of the Chief Ministers' Conference on Internal Security and some closed door meetings with the AICC leadership to finalise the second round of Ministry expansion, followed by the immediate summon of Home Minister Gaikhangam and senior Congress leader Y Erabot to Delhi.

To this add the Chief Minister returning home without the list while Gaikhangam and Erabot stayed back and the circle comes full round. So while the AICC leaders and the top leaders of the MPCC (I) dawdle and fidget over who would make it to the select list of 12, the State continues to reel under only 3 hours of power supply in a day of 24 hours.

While the Chief Minister and other important political leaders of the State stay put at Delhi to put across their case before the AICC leadership, armed persons from a neighbouring village of Nagaland intrude into Jessami and assault six people and take them hostage.

Amid the closed door meetings held at Delhi, a student from Manipur was clobbered to death by his senior hostel mates on the ground that he switched the television channel.

The State has already incurred an overdraft of Rs 400 crores or so with an RBI ban looming large over the head of the State. All funds have been frozen, save for the salary and pension of serving and retired Government employees.

In other words, Manipur remain paralysed in the midst of an overwhelming verdict given by the voters to the Congress and the irony is not at all amusing.