There is no such thing as loyalty in politics. Politicians have one agenda and that is to be where power and influence reside. The attrition from the Congress across the country and in Meghalaya is not a new story. It is an oft repeated tale. The same set of legislators who have deserted the sinking ship and joined the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) in Meghalaya and the BJP elsewhere will be the first to crawl back if the Congress at some point in history returns to power for nothing is permanent in politics. That the turncoats choose to shower so much praise on the party they have joined is hogwash. They are saying something they don’t believe and the public knows it. The Congress today does not have the resources to shower on its political aspirants. The NPP has the dough after having been in power for the second term. It’s the same with the BJP too at the national level. If at all people vote the Congress it is because they believe in its founding principles and its commitment to secular values as opposed to the ideological stances adopted by the BJP today by alienating sections of the population based on religious lines.
It is not easy for those who are used to being in the party that held power for so long to be suddenly out of the power game. When senior Congressmen and women have deserted the ship that steered them through many rough water much earlier, it is no surprise when the underlings also realise that its cold in the opposition and as has been often stated upfront by no less than the Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong, that if politicians want to do development projects in their constituencies they had better support the ruling party or be deprived of such projects, the “come hither” message is loud and clear. People here will not even contest Mr Tynsong’s scurrilous remarks. It shows how little respect the Deputy CM has for democratic principles where the Opposition is actually what shows the mirror to the government and calls out its propensity to ride roughshod over systems of accountability. What Mr Tynsong actually aims at is an Opposition-less democracy, much like the BJP which has been working towards a “Congress Mukt Bharat.”
The role of the Opposition is critical in ensuring that any government maintains the constitutional guardrails. Whatever a government adopts as a policy measure and legislation, the opposition views it from an essentially critical gaze. In Parliament and legislative assemblies, the opposition reacts, questions, scrutinises the government and its committees on a day-to-day basis and does that outside the parliament and assembles, in the media and among the masses. A weak Opposition is in fact, far more perilous than a weak government. In effect, an irresponsible government in combination with a timid Opposition spells doom. Further a weak Opposition also means that the opinions/demands of a large populace (who did not vote for the ruling party) is left unaddressed. Meghalaya is soon reaching that tipping point.