Now that the dust is settling down, it is time to take stock of the Jharkhand experience and the lessons it holds for the Congress, its decision-making processes, coalitional functioning and for governance.Much has been said about the governor’s role and the autonomy he should enjoy. But there are other questions that Jharkhand — and Goa — have thrown up which have to do with ministry-making and representative government. The 40:41 Jharkhand finale or the 18:17 tally in Goa may be a fore-taste of things to come, given the small size of some state assemblies, the inability of mainstream parties to reflect regional aspirations and the growing tendency in our multi-party democracy to throw up fractured verdicts. If this trend continues, we shall see many more “Jharkhands” — the spiriting away of popularly elected legislators in James Bond-type operations, the price of their support skyrocketing with every successive election. The figure being cited today is Rs 5 crore.You cannot beat the political classes in their “ingenuity” when it comes to beating the system they themselves have put in place. They changed the law on defections with great fanfare, banning “splits” that legitimised defections. But those very politicians thought nothing of effecting defections by other means. The most recent method was to get legislators to resign. This happened in Goa where the Congress got five BJP MLAs to resign, and made these “non-legislators” ministers. No better, the BJP is using the “merger” route, which it has tried in the case of the lone NCP MLA in Jharkhand and may try with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP in Bihar, given a chance.The emergence of independents as key players has skewed the concept of representative government. The Jharkhand CM took in all the five independents as ministers in the first round. He was left with only six cabinet berths, since the total strength of the Cabinet cannot exceed 15 per cent of the assembly. There is restiveness within the BJP which has 30 MLAs. The government cannot give representation to the various tribes, communities and regions of Jharkhand. No wonder there is scepticism about the longevity of the Munda ministry.Coming now to the lessons for the Congress, sabotage and individual agendas botched things for the party. Three of the independent MLAs were ready to go with the Congress. The by-now famous Enos Ekka wanted Subodh Kant Sahay to be CM and when that did not look possible, he went — or was allowed to go — with the BJP. Yet another MLA was egged on by some Congress leaders to demand an ambitious sum overnight from Shibu Soren. The third only wanted help to repair the pond in his village. Instead of firming up his support, these leaders allowed the BJP to get to him. But this is only one facet of the murky story.The other aspect is the nature of feedback the Congress leadership got in Delhi, on the basis of which it gave its go-ahead for government formation in Ranchi. The mistakes made by the Congress in Jharkhand — leaving 35 seats for the JMM, cutting out Laloo, moving through a clique of leaders who were not officially assigned to carry out the task — show that the party’s resource base for decision-making has shrunk. There was a time when Sonia Gandhi would meet with a group of 30-40 senior Congress leaders daily in Parliament and thrash out the party’s stand on issues. Now the inputs into any decision do not seem to be enough and there are fewer filters. Goa illustrated the same point.The Congress is heading the UPA government at the Centre, it has the benefit of inputs from intelligence agencies which provide a counter check in the decision-making process. Did the PM, for instance, have inputs from the agencies about how many MLAs really supported the Congress, and was this information passed on to the party? If not, why not? There are indications that unlike in the past, the intelligence agencies are not reporting to the PM on a daily basis; they report, instead, to M.K. Narayanan.The coalitional model thrown up by the 14th Lok Sabha envisages power-sharing not just between the Congress and its allies but also between Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. In the given configuration, power flows from 10, Janpath though political prudence had dictated the installation of Manmohan Singh as prime minister.It is foolish to keep harking back to the Indira Gandhi model of prime ministership. H.D. Deve Gowda was called to head a government of chief ministers, I.K. Gujral had to be first among equals, Vajpayee had to take along the Sangh Parivar, Manmohan Singh is called to rule in step with Sonia Gandhi for that is the way the mandate has emerged. It envisages a partnership, not a division of roles between the “political” and the “adminsitrative”, nor an abdication on the part of the prime minister. That is the message of Jharkhand.Jharkhand, then, has pointed to the inadequacy of the checks and balances in the Congress decision-making apparatus, between the government and the Congress and in the polity. The ultimate check is a vigorous and vigilant public opinion, without which politicans will not act differently.
