Patricia Mukhim
It is commonplace for the Nationalist Peoples’ Party (NPP) a party which won with a huge margin in the parliamentary elections against its closest rival the Congress which is the ruling party in the State, to believe that the results are a public indictment against the ruling party. Following Conrad Sangma’s victory the NPP had been stating times without number that Dr Mukul Sangma should step down for losing the Tura bye-election. Hence the no-confidence motion was expected as this is the first assembly session after the Tura bye-polls. But a parliamentary election is hardly the barometer for testing the strength or otherwise of the State Government. There were many factors that led to the victory of the NPP candidate, foremost among which was that he was stepping into the shoes of his late father PA Sangma. The BJP and UDP provided much moral and physical support by not setting up candidates, the latter for want of any contender. Congress candidate Dikkanchi D Shira was hardly a match for Conrad Sangma when it came to public debates and also as a parliamentary representative. These are indisputable facts.
For a while the BJP kept on harping on the possibility of the MUA-2 government of Dr Mukul Sangma toppling under its own weight. Now the BJP has decided that it is wiser remain silent and allow the Congress-led government to become a victim of its own inherent contradictions. Well, that did not seem to work. For one, dissension in the Congress party is an old wives’ tale. We have seen the shenanigans being played out time and again with the incumbent chief ministers flying to Delhi as if it’s a stone’s throw away, to ply with the AICC that they do not deserve to be dropped; that they have provided good governance; that schemes have been regularly and effectively implemented. All these discussion take place within the AICC with not a shred of evidence that the claims are indeed authentic and with no report card to buttress those claims.
At one time I recall a CM aspirant returning to Shillong from Delhi and obviously sore that he could not make the cut for becoming CM. In a fit of pique he lashed out saying that if only had a few crore rupees he would have got the CM’s post. So within the AICC things are not as straightforward as they are made out to be. Money plays an important role. Some senior Congressmen have alleged that even meeting the AICC President, Sonia Gandhi requires that the machinery that grants access to her be well oiled. It is not easy to meet the Grand Dame of the Congress! And then the AICC puts up a drama of sending the person in charge of Meghalaya to come and assess the situation here. The man comes and talks to Congress party workers only to show that they have been consulted. No one really cares for the views of party workers. It’s the Congress MLAs whose views count, particularly those with the potency to bring down the Government. We recall how Major Ved Prakash had in 2007 carried in a sealed envelope to Delhi the secret votes by 29 Congress MLAs to decide the fate of the two contenders for the CM’s post –JD Rymbai and DD Lapang. At the time Dr Mukul Sangma was also in the fray but later withdrew his candidature. Such political theatrics are part of the Congress culture.
The same drama – clamouring for leadership change – was enacted yet again recently. Many moons later the matter is settled and Dr Mukul Sangma jettisoned some of the ministers who had become a liability to his government (particularly the PWD Minister). Not that he has done any better this time! PWD will still be the Department that could cause the downfall of Dr Sangma’s government because it will still be the worst performing department of his government. In the meanwhile, within his own party Dr Sangma has stolen a march. Perhaps his detractors lack strategy; perhaps they could not converge on the point of an alternative leader to match the astute Sangma. Whatever be the reasons, the AICC seems to have settled on Mukul Sangma as the best bet for now.
But coming back to the No Confidence Motion (NCM) against the MUA -2, which actually is an NCM against Mukul Sangma, this strategy is a bit worn out. We are aware that Meghalaya has about 15 months to go before the next assembly elections. Opposition political parties would give an arm and a leg to be able run the Government and pamper their constituents with schemes. NCMs are supposed to be targeted attacks by opposition parties. But for that they require a considerable amount of prior organisation and floor management. Voters are generally unconcerned about change in government. They know that as far as politicians are concerned they only want power. It is highly unlikely that the Opposition would be any different from the MUA-2 as far as governance is concerned. Besides, (and this is a fatal flaw of politicians in Meghalaya) the Opposition in Meghalaya is a disparate group of ambitious men. After having moved the NCM, let us suppose that the opposition wins the day, the question that follows would be – Who will be the next Chief Minister?
The NCM could only have been won if some Congress MLAs also voted against the Mukul Sangma Government. Would they agree to have Dr Don Kupar Roy as their CM? Doubtful! If I can read the signs of the times then Dr Roy does not even enjoy the confidence of his own party MLAs (UDP). His tenure in 2008 was lackluster and Roy himself is not an inspirational leader. Remembers how his Government fell at the first hint of trouble in 2008? Dr Roy cannot be trusted to lead a Government comprising incongruent elements. I doubt that the HSPDP would support Roy as CM. In fact, those of us who know the political situation here also know that the combined opposition forces would not be able to decide on a CM and that would lead to more political instability and short-circuiting of whatever governance was happening under the MUA-2.
Normally voters are more attentive to NCMs when there are reinforcing negative signals about the government’s performance, such as weak economic performance, a major corruption scandal and also if they see that that there are potential leaders in the Opposition who can bring about substantial change. But voters here don’t believe in musical chairs that are being played out without any real benefit to them. Hence as far as voters are concerned they are apathetic to these seasonal political antics. Before bringing a ‘No Confidence Motion’ the combined Opposition should have shared with the public who they have in mind as the alternative leader and what is the plan of action of that new dispensation. But what we see is an Opposition going to battle without the ammunition required to take the battle to its logical end.
And then on Friday we will have another NCM against the Assembly Speaker AT Mondal. This will be the second time that he is being tested. The Opposition suspects that Mondal is too close to the ruling Government. Now when have we had a Speaker who could eschew his political affiliations simply because he sits on the Speaker’s chair? We have had enough debates on the need to insulate the Speaker from party politics but have had to agree that it is well nigh impossible as long as he needs to seek re-election from one or the other party or even as an Independent candidate. So Friday too will be a waste of time.
There are many acts of omission and commission that the Government needs to be pilloried for but much time has been wasted on political monkeyshines. It takes much time to understand where the Government has failed, why it failed and how it failed. Allegations not based on solid evidence will not stand scrutiny. Barring a few, the rest of the MLAs have no idea or are too indolent or too pressed for time to study the Government’s function from close quarters. This makes it difficult for them to pin-point serious lapses and they are many. At the end of the day therefore, this is yet another wasted Assembly session, high on noise and rhetoric but short on delivery.
From Monday it will be back to ‘business as usual’ (BAU) with Mukul Sangma having the last laugh!
(A disclaimer: Since this article is written a day before the floor test for the survival of the Speaker, if it does happen that the NCM motion is won then I will have to eat crow. But that’s one of the pitfalls of writing a column one day prior to a crucial political drama)