Piling the heat on the CM : Other side of 91st Amendment
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 14 2016 -

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and surely Chief Minister O Ibobi must be feeling the heat from within. Like in the past, the man from Thoubal Assembly Constituency will most probably ride through this rough patch, but it is more than clear that it must have been a tough task to keep his flock together and that he has been doing this since 2002 is something noteworthy.

Not that all credit should go to him, for remember the Chief Minister’s seat was saved more by default, when the BJP led NDA Government passed the stringent anti-defection Bill in 2003, making it practically impossible for Congress legislators to effect any split or switch sides.

Call it co-incidence or something else, but significant to note the stringent anti-defection Bill came when some Congress legislators had started camping at Delhi and elsewhere to oust Ibobi from the chair of Chief Ministership.

This was way back in the winter of 2003 and fast forward to 2016 and now a number of Congress legislators did go to Delhi to present their case before AICC president Sonia Gandhi and deputy Rahul Gandhi.

The slight difference though is that the Congress legislators did not outrightly demand the ouster of Ibobi as Chief Minister, but nevertheless did present their side of the story to the high command.

How far this will impact on the prospect of Ibobi is yet to be known, but it could not have been comfortable for him given the fact that the BJP is breathing down his neck and the Assembly election is due in the early part of next year (2017).

This brings us to the question of what exactly are the dissidents against. Nothing much, but one point they managed to put forward clearly was the one man, one post policy trumpeted by the Congress for long.

This may have cut ice with Sonia Gandhi for she did turn down the post of Prime Minister and instead preferred to remain as the president of the AICC when the Congress won the election way back in 2004.

It has not been stated, but the feeling that the voice of dissent centred around Ministerial berths cannot be written off that easily and this is what is interesting.

With the number of Ministers now restricted to 12, thanks to the 91st amendment of the Constitution in 2003, not all MLAs can be inducted into the Council of Ministers.

And so it is that terms such as jumbo sized Ministry became a term of the past, but if one goes by the voice of dissent raised here, not all seem satisfied with the way in which MLAs are inducted as Ministers.

The bargaining point is what is tough to come around to. As elected representatives of the people there is so much that one can do, but this seems to have blown over the heads of many who have been elected as people’s representatives.

If the voice of dissent had been raised on any other premises, such as corruption or inefficiency then the dissent would have found all round support.

But then who has cared for the welfare of the people and the land ?