The 71:69 trap

It is really not our business to decide which party — the Congress or the Nationalist Congress Party — has the greater claim to Maharashtra’s top political job. What is our business, though, is to state that this tussle over the state’s chief ministership, which has already deprived the people of Maharashtra of an elected government for five days now and doesn’t appear likely to end in a hurry, is not just unseemly, it is an insult to the people of the state.

Maharashtra does not deserve to be treated so shabbily. It is in urgent need of an enlightened and committed political leadership, what with its mounting state deficit, its crumbling urban infrastructure and unfinished projects, its numerous pockets of rural deprivation. Both the Congress and the NCP have made numerous promises to voters in terms of transforming their lives. But when the time has come for them to redeem that pledge, they are busy splitting hairs over the leadership issue. One says that it went to the polls as the acknowledged “senior” partner and therefore must get the CM’s chair, the other insists that its larger tally of seats — 71:69 — signifies its superior status and therefore its claim to the top job. The point is that the Congress-NCP alliance was a pre-poll one and this issue should have been thrashed out much before the first vote was cast. The coalition should have also evolved mechanisms by which disputes of this kind were settled smoothly, without them being dragged into the public sphere. Certainly the on-going cat fight does little to bolster public confidence in the new government.

The coalition dharma is more than a mantra. It is about maturity and the spirit of give and take in the interest of the greater common good; it is also about setting up systems to deal with the unexpected. We can do no more than to recall Sonia Gandhi’s words in the stormy run up to government formation at the Centre after this year’s General Election: “Let us acknowledge that the people of India have chosen us to represent their aspirations, not our own.” Quite. Don’t squander the people’s mandate and goodwill in Maharashtra now. Get on with the job.