Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: November 29,2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/291104-editorial.html
So it is not only the leftists of
various persuasions who routinely twist the arms of the gentleman Prime
Minister to extract their pound of flesh. No, even other still smaller
constituents of the ruling UPA are aping the Commies to bully the politically
frail Manmohan Singh to carry out their dictates. The latest case in point
is the re-induction of the tainted Shibu Soren into the Union Cabinet.
The JMM leader virtually forced his way back into the Cabinet after it
was made known that the self-same gentleman- PM had strong reservations
against his return.
Hours before Singh caved in to the
pressure to take back Soren in the Government, the JMM executive passed
a resolution criticising the UPA Government. Clearly, the message was that
you make Soren a minister or else the JMM would create problems for the
Government. The JMM pressure was doubly reinforced by the proximity of
the Assembly elections in Jharkhand which are due early next year. Since
the Congress Party was keen to ride to power in the State by hanging on
to the coat-tails of the JMM, it per force had to meekly surrender to Soren.
But it was the same Soren who had
figured as a prime accused in a multiple murder case and who was only recently
enlarged on bail after he had spent some time in jail. Even otherwise,
he did not have the requisite administrative experience or political skills
to merit a berth in the Cabinet. The few months he was a member of the
Singh Government before being obliged to quit, he did not exactly cover
himself with glory. Reports of sleaze and scandal were beginning to filter
out of the Coal Ministry just when the issuance of a non-bailable arrest
warrant in the above-mentioned multiple murder case had sent him scurrying
for cover.
The Government of gentleman- PM
recorded a first in the annals of parliamentary democracy when one of its
own Cabinet Ministers went underground. Despite vociferous demands from
the Opposition, there was no-one, not even Singh, able to inform the Lok
Sabha about the whereabouts of the `missing' Coal Minister. Reportedly,
Singh himself was completely in the dark about the whereabouts of his own
Cabinet colleague! Now, Soren will give company to other tainted ministers,
including his comrade-in-crimes, Mohammed Taslimuddin, in the Union Government
headed by the gentleman PM, Manmohan Singh.
Again, there was great pressure
at work in the allocation of a portfolio, at long last, to the Telengana
Rashtra Samiti leader, K. Chandrashekhara Rao. He was given a portfolio
alright when he was first inducted into the Cabinet last May, but was made
to part with it due to the public fuss created by the DMK leaders who refused
to join the Government unless they were given what they had set out to
get from this government of gentleman- PM.
All these months Rao was a Minister
Without Portfolio, drawing his salary and enjoying all the attendant perks
without any responsibility, which given what most ministers with heavy-duty
charges do may not have been such a bad thing after all. But with his patience
wearing thin, the TRS served notice on the Government, threatening to boycott
the UPA meeting later on Friday. Also, it threatened to launch an agitation
for the fulfillment of their demand for the creation of a separate State
of Telengana after carving out a portion of Andhra Pradesh, a demand the
Congress Party was very reluctant to concede even though it had given public
assurances to do so during the parliamentary campaign last May. Rao will
raise the ante over the Telengana issue but only after enjoying the gains
of ministership for some more time.
As a result of these cumulative
pressures, the gentleman-PM was obliged to resort to tinkering of portfolios
in order to find something worthwhile for Rao to handle. The TRS leader
would now get Labour and Employment. The incumbent Labour Minister, Sis
Ram Ola of the Congress Party, would have to make do with the Ministry
of Mines which has now been created by hiving off the Department of Mines
from the Coal Ministry. Such chopping and chipping of departments might
entirely lack any administrative rationale or even the benefits of synergies
which, for instance, had led to the departments of Coal and Mines to be
clubbed under one Ministry in the first place.
But such a clumsy ad hock arrangement
had become necessary in order to accommodate various ministerial aspirants
whom Singh could hardly say no to given his own vulnerability to the minimum
of pressure from the Congress Party's allies. When the pursuit of power
supersedes all other norms and concerns, what you get is a government led
by a gentleman PM who is answerable to so many bosses beginning with his
maker in 10 Janpath to her minions in the Congress Party and further afield
in every small faction and group that forms part of the hydra- headed animal
called UPA. Truly, the NDA was an experiment in good governance, especially
when compared to this headless wonder called the UPA Government.
