The Meghalaya BJP’s bluster has ended in smoke with their two MLAs deciding that they should not push the matter further. In fact, the visit of the BJP Vice President and Meghalaya in charge, Dr P Chuba Ao has buried the corruption issue alive. It’s now back to business as usual in the MDA with a clear message sent to the coalition partners to either go with the flow or leave the coalition. Let’s face facts. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The BJP MLA and health minister in the present government, has survived many coalitions as he himself confessed and to do so one cannot have a spine. He had left BJP, joined Congress and then deserted it yet again to rejoin the BJP. This is possible because in Meghalaya the voters care two hoots about ideology. Any MLA that can service the people and cater to their personal needs need not have a moral compass. Hence the message sent by the voters of Meghalaya is that corruption is kosher as long as their interests are served.
In such a scenario, it is meaningless for leaders of regional parties and for the Congress Party to raise the slogan of the BJP being a communal party threatens to curtail religious freedom and above all of spreading the Hindutva agenda in this predominantly Christian state. It would be a good exercise to see whether people voted who they voted in 2018 based on fears of the BJP coming to power in Meghalaya. Or were all the MLAs who got elected voted for different reasons, some personal, others political? What’s interesting is the complete silence of the BJP President, Ernest Mawrie and Vice President Bernard N Marak following the peace deal on Thursday. In any case the BJP was not the only Party to start the hyperbole on the corruption indulged in by the MDA Government. It’s a different matter that the BJP stuck to the matter of corruption in the Garo Hills District Council (GHDC) while remaining silent on the issue of illegal coal mining and transportation.
What happens next will be a matter of interest to political observers and the media only. To the people of Meghalaya, corruption is hardly an issue because it’s a way of life. It may matter to the staff of GHDC that have not been paid salaries in over two years. It may matter to the poor whose share of the development pie is eaten up by the creamy layer in politics and bureaucracy but the two categories cannot speak. Their voices don’t matter. In the end therefore the corruption issue is virtually a wild goose chase.