The Hindu Business Line : Ready-made ruse

JULY 7 marks the end of the era of jumbo cabinets. After that date, the number of Ministers cannot exceed the Constitutional ceiling of 15 per cent of the strength of the Lower House.

Ministers in several States have outwardly set a fine example of offering their resignations to the Chief Ministers so as to give him a free hand in pruning the Cabinets.

However, this in no way saves the Chief Ministers of States. With oversize Ministries (Bihar and Uttar Pradesh alone have 27 and 37 excess Ministers!) from a serious quandary.

On the one hand, any violation of the mandatory stipulation will attract the punitive action of dismissal of the Government concerned under Article 356, on the manifest ground that it is not being carried on in accordance with the Constitution.

On the other, any sudden deprivation of luxurious livelihoods is bound to create that many enemies of erstwhile political colleagues, even to the extent of snapping party loyalties and fomenting veritable rebellions. So what ruse is there for Chief Ministers to have the Constitutional cake and eat it too?

Not to worry. Chief Ministers have not reached the pinnacle they have without mastering human psychology.

They know that fellow-politicians do not care whether they are called Ministers or whatever so long as they are rewarded with posts entitling them to fancy official cars with a red light on top, commodious, rent-free, furnished bungalows, generous perks of free water, power, telephone calls and the like, gun-toting security men, powers of patronage in terms of appointments and approval of tenders, and last, but (as the saying goes) not the least, the status of Cabinet Ministers.

The Chief Ministers can, at a pinch, create openings for them as chairpersons of the State corporations, cooperative federations and so on which are handy and a handful in every State.

The Chief Ministers are not going to be apologetic about it. To hell with the public opinion, public perception of depletion of State coffers and any number of official reports deprecating the practice.

The stand taken by the Assam Chief Minister is typical. When questioned on his decision to accommodate some Congress MLAs as chairpersons of cash-strapped public sector undertakings, he retorted that there was nothing wrong in it since "we politicians are always accountable and committed to the people...(whereas) bureaucrats have no accountability (and can carry on) till retirement even without fulfilling the aspirations of the people."

There you are.

B. S. Raghavan