SHILLONG, June 29: The two news items — creation of the new district of Mairang and removal of the chairman-cum managing director of MeECL — that came on the same day barely tell the story of political intrigues in the ruling MDA. That the two decisions bear immense political import for the NPP and UDP needs to be told in perspective.
Let’s start at the beginning.
While the people of Meghalaya were struggling with COVID-19, the MDA Government was being held at gunpoint to drop Power Minister James Sangma on allegations of mismanagement and corruption in the MeECL. The perils of a coalition government are that even a minor partner can hold the government to ransom and make it agree to something that would make the junior coalition partner look good while the NPP with 21 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly is increasingly appearing to be losing face.
For over three months, after UDP made a strident call for divesting the elder Sangma sibling of the Power portfolio, the sword of Damocles was hanging over Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma. For reasons best known to him, Conrad was stonewalling the move, despite all the goings-on including the award of the Saubhagya Scheme contract to Satnam Global Infraprojects Ltd a Delhi-based company which had quoted inflated rates for supply of materials and cement for the project.
For the CM, taking away yet another department from his senior sibling was not an option. Instead, he struck a deal with UDP top brass. The quid pro quo was to upgrade Mairang, the constituency of UDP President and Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh, into a district. This despite all the financial constraints facing the state at this juncture. For the UDP this is a brownie point for the 2023 elections. For NPP it is to ensure that coalition boat was not rocked by recalcitrance of coalition partners in search of their pound of flesh.
Interestingly, the political grapevine says that Deputy CM Prestone Tynsong and senior Cabinet minister Sniawbhalang Dhar of the NPP and Metbah Lyngdoh of the UDP exerted a lot of pressure on the Chief Minister to divest James of the Power portfolio. Earlier the UDP had pressurized the Chief Minister to divest James of the Home portfolio.
Insofar as Dhar is concerned it was more about business. It is alleged that his business firm has not been awarded any contract work by the Power department. All tenders are now online and all firms interested in works pertaining to MeECL are bidding online but Dhar might have thought these formalities could be dispensed with for an insider to the system.
The CMD of MeECL Arunkumar Kembhavi, became the convenient scapegoat to be sacrificed at the altar of politics. Interestingly, the UDP did not make a song or dance about the scam pertaining to the Special Nutrition Programme of the Social Welfare Department, nor of the poor performance of Meghalaya’s education as per the PGI grading; nor indeed of the continuance of illegal coal mining.
Incidentally, the coalition which has no common minimum programme, has to survive on keeping the partners amused. The BJP and HSPDP with two MLAs each have one minister each (50%). The UDP with seven MLAs and one associate member has three ministers and the Speaker making it 57 % of its strength holding influential posts. The PDF with four MLAs has two ministers (50% of its strength).
NPP with 21 MLAs has just five ministers (23.8 % of its strength) with only two ministers from Garo Hills — CM Conrad Sangma and Power Minister James Sangma. Yet the dominant partner UDP has seen to it that the NPP perpetually remains at it’s mercy.
