Revolt of Cong MLAs
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 04, 2014 -

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” This line from the soliloquy attributed to King Henry in the play, ‘Henry the Fourth’ of William Shakespeare could very well sum up the position in which our honourable Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh has come in today.

Beset by rebellion from his disgruntled Congress legislators who are demanding reshuffling of his nearly two-and-a-half-year-old ministry before the commencement of 8th session of the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly from July 11; like King Henry, who started feeling the weight of his own past follies under the crown, Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh must be probably wishing now that he hadn't made any ludicrous assurance or agreement on giving the Ministerial berths to those elected Congress legislators who were left out from the first Ministry expansion after the end of the first half of the term of 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly.

In a Ministry which could accommodate only 12 elected legislators, who should be inducted from among his ‘original’ 42- strong team was a tough decision that Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh had to make at that time, and now it is going to be an even more tougher decision for him to make to effect reshuffling of the Ministry with all power-hungry Congress legislators coming together to remind him of the agreement on sharing the tenure of the Ministry, howsoever, ludicrous it may sound.

As we are elaborated in a special report on the present crisis, sharing of Ministerial tenure is a concept which has never been heard of anywhere.

There is no such provision in the Constitution of India nor has there been any convention where the Ministerial tenure is shared between two or more legislators.

It is just a very weird concept that has been created by power-hungry politicians of Manipur to please one another.

While Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh has committed one of the most ludicrous mistakes in coming up with such an agreement despite his political experiences as the administrative head of the State for three consecutive terms, the insistence on the part of the disgruntled Congress legislators to replace the existing Ministers and inducted them in their place on the basis of tenure sharing agreement sound equally stupid.

It would have been to the credit and credibility of these power-hungry Congress legislators if their demand had been based on the criteria of the underperformance of the Ministers in the present Council of Ministers, of which is no dearth in their number, and the public would have surely appreciated their efforts.

Their demand for removal of the existing Ministers (howsoever, weak and incapable they may be) based on some unconventional and unconstitutional agreement of sharing the Ministerial tenure has shown to what level they could stoop in their quest for power.

In fact, the revolt of the Congress legislators has got nothing to do with strengthening of the party ahead of the next State Assembly election, as they claim, but with their own insecurity of missing the next bus to the Assembly.