People are yet to recover from the shock of the sordid drama of unpardonable treachery by eight jumping jacks. But the restless leader of the characterless individuals, was in the forefront of yet another crooked behaviour. While people were taken aback by the first incident, mostly because the Congress tried its best to convince people that no longer there would or could be betrayals with oaths taken before God, and affidavits signed, the second wasn’t much of a surprise with the poaching masters on the prowl.
Incidentally, there is no legal action seen yet, despite P Chidambaran’s emphatic assurance earlier that the affidavits, signed by Congress candidates, were legally enforceable. Perhaps, he developed cold feet after watching how close one of the traitors was to God that he even prompted him to do something admittedly morally wrong, but apparently legally correct. I say legally correct because it was surely the High Court decision in the earlier case of defection of 10 MLAs, which encouraged the new lot to defect, though we await with bated breath the SC’s view on that, which may come at the fag end of this Assembly’s term. The anti-defection law clearly spells out that there needs to be a two thirds split in the original Party, which has not happened. Nowhere, it refers to two thirds of Legislature Party.
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The issue appears now closed, unless the SC reverses HC decision. However, as expected, it has had repercussions in Margao Municipal Council. Though Councillors and Panchas are not elected on party basis, some MLAs try to show their supremacy and how powerful thee are, but that attempt failed miserably in Margao. Having lost face before the people and unable to accept a humiliating defeat, the BJP Government did what they are best at – use its might and crush people’s democratic rights and take the ordinance route to impose its will, with rubber stamps used at will. It is unfortunate that in India, political Parties not only enjoy privileges of not disclosing the names of their benefactors and their contributions but also in poking their dirty noses in University and College elections and controlling Municipalities and Panchayats and holding them to ransom.
Some of the councillors of MMC need to be complimented for giving their master, last month, a taste of his own medicine by voting secretly for a new Chairperson, according to their own conscience unlike their boss, the MLA of Margao, who had sold his, in a most abject act of betrayal of his constituents. The man, who boasts of being religious and claims that God encouraged him to defect, had no compunction in compelling councillors to lie on oath before God, knowing full well that some of them were not telling the truth regarding their voting in the election of Chairperson.
It is not surprising, but surely detestable that he immediately engineered a no-confidence motion against Ghanashyam Shirodkar, who had not even taken charge as Chairperson. One of the reasons why I wonder whether this is truly a democracy is because of many undemocratic methods followed by Governments here. Admittedly, confidence is a subjective term. People voting may differ on whether a person being voted out has performed or not. But how can anyone vote out a person, just elected, who has not had a chance to perform even for a single day? Why such an anomaly, when the Act forbids a no confidence motion being brought up within six months on the same incumbent, against whom an earlier motion failed?
Despotism was evident once again when the Ordinance route was taken to impose an undemocratic procedure to undo a democratic one in electing the Chairperson by secret ballot. What an achievement, CM Pramod Sawant and Governor Pillai. It was surely propounded by none other than the man fond of Ordinances and who had brought one, when he was the CM, to save a portion of his friend’s hotel, which was to be demolished under SC’s order. So far, we were aware that Ordinances were issued when Assembly was not in session and in emergent circumstances. We are not aware what emergency arose except that the Government feared a conscience vote, which they cannot accept as existing in their scheme of things. No one, except an autocratic Government like the present one, will disagree that secret ballot is far more democratic than show of hands.
Digambar Kamat kept demanding that he be shown the words “secret ballot” for the election of CP. The Municipalities Act, after providing for use of ballot paper for CP’s election, Rule 5 demands that it be folded “so as to conceal his vote” and that it “shall not be signed by the voter nor be marked by him in any other way that would reveal his identity”. After the ridicule he has been going through, in recent times, DK ought to have avoided betraying his poor understanding of the law, which is so clear that even an illiterate would understand it.
DK boasts of being the only CM to complete his full term, which he did because he allowed his Cabinet colleagues a free hand, resulting in Congress’ decimation in 2012, after allegations of high scale corruption. He shouldn’t forget the JICA scam and mining closure, few months after he relinquished office for reasons well known to all. Lastly, Madganvkars hardly give him credit for anything worthwhile or which ought to have had priority like the parking lot, but surely remember his patronage of Monti Dongor, where he derives his strength from, and the Muslim community of his eternal unfulfilled promise of a khabrastan. Digambar has been left sucking his thumb for around a month now. Let us hope he doesn’t complete his present term in utter frustration.
(The author is a retired banker)
