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Journalism of Courage
There is hope at last that the days of the jumbo ministry may be numbered. A law ministry proposal winging its way through the power corridors seeks to fix an upper limit on the number of ministers. Reportedly based on the recommendations of the Justice M.N. Venkatachalaiah Committee to review the Constitution, it restricts the ministry size to 10 per cent of the combined strength of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the Centre and to 10 per cent of the legislative assembly and council in the states. In these times of untenably bloated ministries and impossibly shrunken governance, this proposal is indeed welcome. It was, in fact, long overdue.
Our founding fathers had hoped that prime ministers and chief ministers would be men and women of wisdom and that they would exercise restraint in determining the size of their cabinets. The Constitution, therefore, placed no restrictions on the PM or CM in forming the council of ministers. In retrospect, those expectations were misplaced. They failed to anticipate the massive changes in the texture and structure of the country8217;s politics. The discretion of the PM or CM is much reduced in ministry-making today 8212; he or she is blackmailed by a host of factors that dictate the ever-expanding ministry. Many lay the blame at the door of coalition politics. The carrots of office must be dangled before the fence sitters and the unscrupulous, they point out, simply to make up the numbers that make the government stable. There is truth in that. But even a cursory look at the political obscenities unleashed daily in the name of governance in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which also boast of jumbo ministries, reveals that it is not about compulsions of alliance politics alone. What is also evident is a cynical pursuit of power at any cost, and the falling away of the last fig leaves.
