Central Hall – Inexperience Shows!

Mumbai:

His only qualification to holding the highest executive post of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra is that since 1997 he has been supervising or looking after the conduct of the elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for his late father Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray. His unanimous choice by both the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) appears to be a well-crafted Machiavellian step in ensuring that Uddhav Thackeray takes all the blame for whatever decisions he takes as the Chief Minister, borne out of his administrative inexperience.  

And it is showing in a big glaring way. Widely believed to be his own man, no push-over and steadfast on his decisions, his decisions ever since he took oath of office point to the man’s administrative inexperience. The first few days in office have been nothing but stopping this, stopping that and then ordering an review of all the administrative decisions his predecessor and friend, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJPs) former chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis had taken.

It is naïve to believe that none of his experienced senior Sena minister’s like Subhash Desai, Diwakar Raote or Eknath Shinde should have not briefed him about all the aspects of the decisions he has taken so far. Or was it the case of the courtiers being too scared to tell their king that he wore no clothes?, as was in the Emperors Clothes parable.

Why Machiavellian? we say is because so far although the cabinet minister’s have been sworn-in, they are minister’s without any portfolio’s. It is less than a weeks-time before Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and his kitchen cabinet head for Nagpur, for the new governments first week-long winter session. If he does not allocate the portfolio’s, (the meatier ones are the real bone of contention here), then he will have to face the barrage of questions from a well experienced and strong opposition led by Fadnavis. Even if the minister’s are allocated their portfolio’s by then, fingers will still be pointed at the chief minister for the decisions he took before the minister’s took charge.

For a Chief Minister who says he has entered the hallowed portals of the Vidhan Sabha for the first time, and then to ask the media in his very first interaction, not to just ask questions, but give answers along with those questions as well, the “inexperience shows”.

Instead of first reviewing the previous decisions and then taking the decision accordingly, first the stay has been imposed and a review has been ordered. It is like putting the cart before the horse, rather than the cart following the horse. Withdrawing the cases against the agitators in the Aarey Metro car shed, Nanar oil refinery case and reviewing them in the Bhima-Koregaon agitation appear to be more political decisions.

By imposing a stay on the construction of the controversial Metro 3 car shed at Aarey Milk Colony, he may have played to the gallery, but his decision runs contrary to the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court decisions which did not stay the construction work, but halted the tree cutting. Now the stay imposed, per-day shall cost the state exchequer Rs 1,000 crore which in other words means rise in fares in the future.

Latest, another hard to explain decision was to postpone the examinations for vacancies in Animal Husbandry department by “MahaPariksha” Portal citing anomalies is fraught with dangerous consequences for the students at least. For those eligible candidates who have appeared or are about to appear for any examinations conducted by the portal, it is a nightmarish situation.

It is for these decisions that, post-poll coalition governments or Khichadi Sarkar’s born out of a hung or a fractured mandate appear more unsteady than pre-poll coalition governments. It is also for these reasons also political and electoral maturity of the electorate also matters. The electorate had given its verdict, but it is the post-poll alliances that smack right in the face of any morality. It has once again raised the question of whether the people should have the Right To Recall their elected representative if he or she does not live up to their expectations.

Even the Supreme Court does not want to tread into the arena of what it calls “political morality”, preferring itself to limit its role to judging “constitutional morality”. The Justice Sarkaria Commission recommendations on pre-poll and post-poll alliances were made taking into account the era of coalition governments in the 1980’s.The electorate seems to have made up its mind on meeting harsh treatment to party hoppers. It is now time to take a stand on pre-poll or post-poll alliance governments.