June 8, 1998

The crisis in the AGP Ministry may have blown over for now, but the dissidents plan to mount another attack after the assembly by-elections.

By Avirook Sen

It was an unusual scene in Guwahati last week: ruling Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) ministers were working very hard. Not in their offices in the Dispur capital complex -- where departmental work had virtually come to a standstill -- but out of the residence of AGP Publicity Secretary Moidul Islam Bora. His house, just beside Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta's residence, had been turned into the operational headquarters for the crisis management team. Loyalist ministers, not to speak of some out of work ex-ministers like Biren Baishya, worked overtime on phones and fax machines to devise a strategy to quell the latest rebellion against Mahanta.

The morning of May 27 saw stepped up activity in the house as Thaneswar Boro, the party's venerated education minister, had resigned. Boro's name had been proposed by the dissidents, led by former ministers Atul Bora, Bhrigu Phukan and Jatin Mali, as the alternative to Mahanta as party leader. Just the night before, Boro had issued a statement saying he had "full faith in Mahanta's leadership". The statement apparently ended speculation about which way Boro would go. Mahanta, after a good night's rest, left in the morning for Balipara near Tezpur to lay the foundation stone of an industrial growth centre. Soon after, however, he received the bad news.

Assam is an earthquake-prone state, but the tremors of late have been very localised -- they have caused the chief minister's chair to list precariously. The LOC scam late last year almost cost Mahanta his job. His obstinacy about nominating wife Jayshree as a candidate for the Nagaon parliamentary seat -- and the party's rout in the polls -- resulted in a rebellion within the AGP. And now, with a cabinet reshuffle that's resulted in three resignations and a sacking already, the dominoes are falling one by one. Boro claimed that he had the support of 33 of the party's 63 MLAs -- enough to dislodge Mahanta.

The backroom boys were worried. Using the easy but restricted access -- only those who are allowed to use it know that the key to the gate is looped over one of its spikes -- to the rear gate of Mahanta's official residence, Agriculture Minister Chandramohan Patowary went in to communicate to Mahanta the progress made that afternoon. "He is not worried, there's no crisis," said the minister after coming out. Patowary was in the midst of a complicated logistical exercise: he had to get as many MLAs as he could for a parade before the press the next day.

And at the "op-headquarters" the AGP's powerful Food and Civil Supplies Minister Digen Bora was high on confidence: "The day Atul Bora has 21 MLAs (the number required to split the party) he will call me and ask if I want to join." Conclusion: the dissidents have less than one-third -- the number required to escape disqualification under the Anti-Defection Act -- of the AGP's 63 MLAs. Mahanta loyalists wryly say that with Atul Bora no longer a minister, and soon to be deprived of his official telephone, the chances of that call coming through are bleak.

A split is something that the dissidents cannot afford. It would mean truck with the "untouchables": the Congress, which has in any case ruled out the possibility of an understanding. But on the afternoon of May 28, the Mahanta camp threw its own challenge. With 45 MLAs in tow and letters of solidarity from seven others, Mahanta's senior colleagues held a press conference. As you can see, said party spokesman and PWD Minister Nagen Sarma, "we have the numbers, now it is up to those who have gone astray to come back into the mainstream".

But it wasn't the numbers that were important. It was the announcement that there would be no AGP legislature party meeting to discuss the leadership issue. "At our present strength in the House, at least 35 MLAs have to write to the party president, requisitioning a meeting on the change of leadership," said Veterinary Minister S.N. Medhi. "As we have demonstrated, that is hardly likely."

Nothing, however, is likely to happen before the by-elections to two assembly seats scheduled for June 3. The seats were vacated by Congress MPs Tarun Gogoi and Mani Kumar Subba, and given the preoccupation with its internal crisis, the AGP is unlikely to win either of them.

With 63 MLAs and the support of only the Left parties (3 MLAs) and one regional party (1 MLA) in a House of 126, the AGP is not exactly in a strong position. And Atul Bora hopes it will be further weakened after the by-elections. "Let them parade all the MLAs they want, it will mean nothing once we commence with our strategy." Mahanta, on the other hand, has a plan of his own: he will soon expand his Cabinet. "He has 24 departments with himself, he'll just give some away and the problem will be solved," says Digen Bora.

But what led to the AGP's latest crisis? One observer feels that it's a case of "elephants (the party symbol) never forgetting". In 1987, two years into his first term as chief minister, Mahanta -- in consultation with Phukan and Atul Bora (both close aides at the time) -- dropped 12 ministers in a reshuffle. Mahanta, who according to a loyalist cabinet minister "hardly has the capacity to take decisions on his own" became a party to that decision. Nevertheless, he's paying for it now. The ministers he dropped then -- Patowary, Nagen Sarma and Digen Bora, among others -- are powerful now. They prevailed upon him to take away Atul Bora's "fiefdom", the PWD Department, in a recent reshuffle and effectively engineered the crisis. But while some of the ministers dropped in that fateful 1987 reshuffle are preoccupied with the past, the aftershocks of that move are now rocking Mahanta's chair. The backroom boys want their revenge against Atul Bora and company.

After the parade of MLAs, they claimed that they had been avenged. "Now," said Patowary, who'd been given less than 24 hours to round up the MLAs, "I can finally get some sleep." So can the beleaguered chief minister, at least until the next crisis.

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