CM can be dummy, Ministers dominate
By Someswar Bhagwat
Who is the Chief Minister of the ‘great State’ of Maharashtra? This is not a general knowledge test and ‘Maha rashtra’ itself means great State.
Many newspaper readers may think it is Sanjay Raut. In India which had an expert economist as a dummy prime minister who let an Italian widow run the country it is no surprise that the ‘maha’ state has a dummy chief minister too.
After reading Sanjay Raut holds forth on everything under the Sun and condemns the Bharatiya Janata Party, no wonder readers think he and not the Thackeray dynasty chief Uddhav is the real CM.
Sanjay Raut is the spokesman of the Maharashtra government which is run by a coalition controlled by Sharad Pawar and of which the Italian widow’s party is a partner. In a recent press conference Raut used words which any editor would hesitate to even utter and he claims to be the editor of Shiv Sena’s official mouthpiece the Marathi daily ‘Saamna‘. He called his rivals sodomists and pimps – both of whom he seems to be very familiar with.
Shiv Sena headed by Uddhav and dominated by Raut adores Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the main enemy of Muslim rule in India and wants India to be a Hindu country. Just for power it joined hands with Muslims’ main voice , the Congress, and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party which broke away from Congress on the issue of a foreigner ruling it.
So it is obvious some would fall to any level just for the post of CM. There are two reasons for anyone wanting to be the chief minister or the prime minister : the power which the post brings or the big money that can be had by corruption. With another party leader taking away all his power Uddhav is left only with the second option, for which Mumbai’s status as the nation’s economic capital gives ample scope. Power alone and not ideology can be the basis of such a coalition.
The Congress is no stranger to dummy posts. Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh earned the epithet of ‘Maun’ (silent)Mohan Singh for remaining silent before the same Italian lady Pawar objected to.
In Karnataka S. M. Krishna was so disgusted with being made a dummy and D. K. Shivkumar becoming the real CM, that he resigned from the Congress itself and joined the BJP, though he has no post or position there.
There were other dummies in the Congress regime which is responsible for the political culture that has evolved over the decades of its rule. In that culture post alone counts.
