March 9, 1998

Congress strives for stable coalition government

By Avirook Sen

Congress President Sita-ram Kesri was prompted to repeat the old traders' line "Yeh accha bohni hua hai" when he heard the election results from Meghalaya. The first results to be declared in Election '98 had gone in favour of his party. The north-eastern hill state returned Congressmen in both the parliamentary seats and in 25 of the state's 60 Assembly seats. According to the Congress president, himself the son of a grocer, business in 1998 had begun on a good note.

On February 24 and 25, however, trade of a different kind was taking place in Meghalaya's capital Shillong. While the Congress' two parliamentary wins came through former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma and former Mizoram governor P.R. Kyndiah, the party had fallen six seats short of a clear majority in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly. As its closest rival, the regional United Democratic Party had 20 members, the rest of the 15 MLAs were up for grabs; business, naturally, was brisk. Said Sangma, who plays a major role in Meghalaya politics: "We have the support of three Independent candidates and the three MLAs from the Hill State People's Democratic Party, which takes our tally to 31 -- the figure required to form the government."

Late on February 25, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) met and, under the watchful eyes of Sangma and other AICC observers, re-elected S.C. Marak as its leader. The chief minister should consider himself lucky to get the nomination as he scraped through by just 285 votes in Resubelpara. Besides, 16 of his 26 ministers lost miserably. Said a senior Congress leader: "We were not happy with Marak's performance. But there was little to choose from." Marak's main opponent within the party, former chief minister D.D. Lapang, reportedly had the support of just eight of the Congress' 25 MLAs.

The Congress could not grab any fresh territory as its performance followed the pattern of the 1993 assembly polls. The Garo hills, Sangma-country for all purposes, returned 17 Congress candidates out of a possible 24. Sangma himself won the Tura parliamentary seat by a huge margin of 1.77 lakh votes and a number of Congress candidates from the region won simply by hanging on to his coat-tails. This led to, what Sangma has always worked hard to ensure, a Garo nominee as chief minister yet again. The state's other two major tribes, the Khasis and the Jaintias, together could throw up only eight Congress MLAs, thus dashing the hopes of Lapang, a Khasi.

The divide between the Garos and the Khasis has also ensured that Meghalaya almost always has a coalition government. It had four such governments between 1988 and 1993. And although the Marak government that took over after that lasted five years, there was a price to pay. The Congress had just 24 MLAs in 1993, so the allure of ministerial berths played a crucial role in stabilising the Marak government -- there were as many as 26 ministers in a 60-member House.

"Experience has proved that only the Congress can provide a stable coalition government," says Marak. And when he met Meghalaya Governor M.M. Jacob to stake his claim, this was his clinching argument. Sangma, however, is not in favour of jumbo cabinets. "But sometimes there is very little choice," he says. With the Congress just six short of a majority and bidding for power, that choice seems to have been made for Meghalaya.

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