Divested not handed view : Change of Home Baton
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 19, 2012 -

From left to right: Home Minister Gaikhangam, Revenue Minister Th Debendra and Health Minister Phungzathang Tonsing on March 17 2012 - Pix :: TSE

The interesting part is not that MPCC president Gaikhangam has been allocated the Home portfolio but that this has been divested from the Chief Minister who has held this post for the last ten years.

This however is not to play down the significant role that Mr Gaikhangam is expected to play in the coming days or in the last two innings of the SPF, first as a senior Cabinet Minister holding the important Works portfolio and later as the president of the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee, but the fact that the Home portfolio has been divested from the Chief Minister tells many a tale.

Ever since the infamous clash of personalities between the late RK Jaichandra as Chief Minister and the late I Tompok as the Home Minister in the latter part of the 80s, the general perception in Manipur has been that it is better for the Chief Minister to hold the Home portfolio, to blunt the emergence of another power centre within the ruling party, which could lead to instability and impact on the governance of the land.

The recent divestment of the Home portfolio from the Chief Minister is a departure from this general perception and precedence and this is where the interesting point lies.

This is where the hand of the high command of the AICC, an idea and a concept that has had a defining say in many important political developments during the last ten years in Manipur, becomes more than visible.

This arrangement could have come about to avert any public stand off between Mr Okram Ibobi Singh and Mr Gaikhangam and could have been the magic wand that the AICC leadership wielded in coming to the 'unanimous' decision that the original man from Khangabok Assembly Constituency would be the leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the 10th Assembly.

The background against which the Home portfolio has been divested from the Chief Minister is also interesting and extremely significant. Rewind two months back and the screaming headlines on all the newspapers published in Imphal was the visit of the Chief Election Commissioner of India to Imphal with a one point agenda-change the DGP and do away with the adhoc policy of appointing SPs-in-charge in some districts of Manipur.

That this was a rap on the knuckle of the State Government, particularly the man who then held the Home portfolio is something which cannot be written off as some mere utterings.

The significance in divesting the Home portfolio from the Chief Minister also lies in the fact that though many political commentators of Manipur had more than once hinted and even stated that he (Chief Minister) should not concentrate some of the most crucial portfolios in his hand, there was no audible suggestion that the Home portfolio should be given to someone else.

This could be perhaps due to a lesson learnt during the infamous clash between the late RK Jaichandra as the Chief Minister and the late I Tompok as Home Minister.

Rather almost all the opinions were that the Finance portfolio held by the Chief Minister should be given to someone else. It is also interesting to note that the recent development has come amid the barely audible whispers but loudly significant questions raised over the composition of all fresh recruits for which the recruitment process was conducted by the Home Department in the last ten years.

The 'district fixation tag' that became part and parcel of the last two regimes is something too significant not to be read into the new development. That Gaikhangam would be the second among equals was more than hinted during the first Ministry expansion of the new Government, but no one would have thought that this would amount to holding the

key Home portfolio. This may be a method adopted by the AICC to placate emerging camps within the State Congress unit but there is the need to look beyond this.

Whether Mr Gaikhangam will be able to do justice to his new position as the Home Minister remains to be seen, but already a significant message has been rung out.

And this message can be understood more clearly by viewing the allocation of the Home portfolio beyond merely changing the persons holding it, but in recognising the point that this important and crucial portfolio has been divested from the Chief Minister.

As to the question of what will happen to the Finance portfolio, it still remains in the realm of speculations.