Meghalaya has a reputation for installing and removing chief ministers faster than in any other state. But this time it has created a new record: the state now has four ‘chief ministers’, one sworn in by the Governor, two already holding the rank and status of chief minister, and a fourth “upgraded” to the same status a couple of days ago.
It was a government notification, made public by a press release of the Meghalaya directorate of information and public relations, that stated that state Congress president Friday Lyngdoh, also a legislator, was “upgraded” to the status of chief minister. Incidentally Lyngdoh was already holding the status of a deputy chief minister. According to the official notification dated January 28: “The rank and status of (Friday) Lyngdoh has been upgraded from that of deputy chief minister to that of chief minister. He shall continue to function as political advisor to the Chief Minister.”
But even as Lyngdoh attains the status of chief minister alongside Darwing Diengdoh Lapang, who was sworn in by Governor R S Moosahary on May 13 last year, two others — State Planning Board chairman Donkupar Roy and Meghalaya Economic Development Council chairman J D Rymbai — also enjoy the rank and status of chief minister. Both Roy and Rymbai are former chief ministers of the state.
And as if four persons with the rank and status of chief minister are not enough, Meghalaya, both of whose members in the Lok Sabha are ministers in the Union government, has two others who are officially designated deputy chief ministers of the state. They are Mukul Sangma and Bindo Lalong.
“Though Lyngdoh has been elevated to the rank and status of a chief minister, he does not enjoy any constitutional power. The executive powers are vested only on Lapang. It is a political decision taken by Chief Minister Lapang by taking his colleagues into confidence,” said Anish Gandhi, advisor to Lapang, from Shillong.
And though nobody in the Lapang government or in the ruling coalition would admit it, the fact remains that Friday Lyngdoh’s upgradation comes close on the heels of hectic activities in the rebel camp within the MPCC that he was reportedly heading. It was only on January 5 that Lapang had reshuffled his ministry, which prompted Lyngdoh to protest before the AICC over the style of functioning of the Chief Minister.
The Opposition, meanwhile, has hit out at the Congress-led ruling coalition for wasting huge sums of public money just to keep the coalition in power. “It is strange that the government is wasting money just to stick to power, and that too when the state government does not have enough funds to pay salaries of its employees,” said Conrad Sangma, leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.
The ruling Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance (MUA), which took over in May last year, has 37 legislators in a house of 60, of which 28 are Congress MLAs and nine are of the UDP. Lapang’s is the third government in the state since the March 2008 Assembly elections.