By H H Mohrmen
There is a general sense which is growing by the day that the Members of the District Councils have demeaned the Institution which they were elected to serve and are supposed to promote and strengthen. This is obvious from the fact that people are beginning to show signs of their being disinterested in the Autonomous District Councils and one would not be surprised if there is a decline in voter turnout in the next election to the ADCs, particularly amongst the youth. And for this unfortunate development the MDCs have no one but themselves!
The fact of the matter is that the ADCs are becoming mere institutions to accommodate the politicians who had failed to win the assembly election. In fact the ADCs are a springboard for politicians who aspire to become MLAs in the future. The question is what have they achieved in the last five years? Both the ADCs have only been able to bring out the two bills on the administration of the villages and this is also because the two districts were compelled to come with the Act by the Meghalaya High Court.
People should be concerned because these same MDCs, irrespective of their party affiliation or the constituency they represent, have treated the ADCs as a game and they switch their loyalties at the drop of a hat. The MDCs are in the Council for their own interests only. If that were not so, why is there a need to change the ECs in the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council and the Khasi Hills ADC when the election to the two Councils are due in seven or eight months time? What is the NPP which is engineering this change of EC, hoping to achieve within the short span of time?
The NPP’s interest is only to accommodate their party leaders in the top position of the Council and nothing else. And in Khasi hills, it has now put a master of all defectors (because he is the only politician who had been a member of almost all the political parties in the State) in the hot seat of the KHADC. This brings us to the next important question and that is whether the National Parties have any business in the ADCs? In fact if a study is conducted to find out the cause of frequent change of Executive Committees in almost all the ADCs, one obvious finding will be that every time there is a move to change the EC, there is an invisible hand of the National Parties holding the threat and playing with the ADCs like the puppeteer does with his puppets.
P.N. Syiem too has to pay for his adventure in Ranikor when he tried to gather support for a consensus candidate to contest against Martin Danggo a former Congress legislator who resigned and will now contest on the NPP ticket. NPP leadership had calculated the damage that Syiem’s adventure or rather misadventure could do to the NPP candidate and decided to clip his wings at the earliest. The leadership in the NPP knows that if the other parties can arrive at a consensus then without any doubt Danggo will be defeated and it will be an embarrassment for the NPP which is leading the government in the State and which is also now; holding the reins of all the ADCs – the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills Autonomous District Council.
A divided opposition is an advantage for the NPP candidate, hence they want to ensure that many candidates contest the Ranikor by-election because like the old adage says – the more the merrier. The Congress too is holding its cards close to its chest because in the battle for a single largest party in the State Assembly, in Danggo’s resignation the party has lost one very important seat. In the last LA election the UDP candidate came a close second when Danggo won the seat as a Congress candidate. One option for the Congress is to play spoilsport for the UDP by acting like the proverbial dog in the manger and let the NPP win the seat. Or it can officially or unofficially support the United Democratic Party candidate to help it win the Ranikor seat.
The Congress will have to decide which is more important; the NPP winning Ranikor and increasing the numbers of the party’s MLA in the Assembly or sacrifice its pride and help the UDP win the seat and Congress continues to remain the single largest party in the house, albeit a very thin majority. With regards to Ranikor the ball like they say is in the Congress court and if the party is anticipating a change of power in Delhi post the 2019 general election which will also directly influence the politics in the State, then it should play its card very carefully.
Congress’ only chance of coming to power again in Meghalaya post 2019 general election is a change of government in Delhi and the support of the regional parties in the state. Otherwise it will have to eat humble pie and remain in the opposition the entire five year term. P.N. Syiem’s move will also be important if he wants to checkmate the NPP which had betrayed him by removing him unceremoniously from the office of the Chief Executive Member of the KHADC at a very critical juncture when the Council is due to go to the polls soon.
Now it will also be interesting to see how the drama in Syiem’s new party will unfold. Will he demand that his MLAs withdraw support to the NPP led government? Or maybe he will not because he already anticipated the outcome – which is that the MLAs will not resign and he wants to save himself the embarrassment that his colleague Ardent Basaiawmoit had to face. P.N. Syiem is a politician who likes to fight many battles at a time; he would have been able to strengthen and do his party a service if he had spent his time and energy in preparing for the ensuing District Council elections to the Khasi and Jaintia Hills but instead he chose to indulge in the by-election which has cost him dearly.
The question that we need to ask is if in the whole five year term all that the two ADCs have achieved is to come up with the Village Administration Bill, then isn’t this a colossal waste of public money? They have not been able to come up with policies to protect our rivers, our hills, forest, our land and more importantly our culture; so where is the need to continue supporting these institutions? The voters are also to blame for the current scenario, because we are the ones who elected them and put them in the position they are in now. We are the ones who made them into some sort of demi-gods.
Now that there ios a move to amend the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution we can come up with few suggestions. The only solution to this chronic problem that the ADCs are facing is to support the idea mooted by John Kharshiing which is to make ADCs partyless institutions. And if that is not possible, then the Government come up with legislation that only regional parties can contest the election to the ADCs, because national parties have no business in the ADCs other than to destabilise their functions. If that is not possible then perhaps the last option is to join Mr Michael Syiem the former student leader who has spearheaded a move to do away with the ADCs altogether.
It is obvious that of late there is a growing disinterest in the function of the ADC amongst a large section of the young population in the state who have even questioned the relevance of the Institution. And if the MDCs continue to treat the ADCs like a game of snakes and ladders that they play in their smart phones then they have themselves to blame if there are an increasing number of youths who refuse to vote in the ensuing ADC elections and make the ADCs ultimately redundant.