Doshehe Y. Sema
Ex-minister
Power and Election
The NPF has come back to power with an impressive victory for which the credit goes to the electorate of Nagaland. Disgruntlement within NPF elected MLAs demanding better portfolios has hogged media headlines these days. Elections are over and it is time to exhibit maturity as elected MLAs are supposed to be working for the welfare of the people, their constituencies and societal development and not for individual benefit.
So to speak, there are no portfolios which could be described as “lucrative.” It all depends on the budgetary allocation of funds. It could be a big department but if there is no allocation of fund it will only be a skeleton department. Whichever department gets sufficient budgetary allocation that department becomes lucrative. Therefore, the ministers, parliamentary secretaries, chairmen/advisor will have to try to bring more funds from the government of India with the help of chief minister.
If I were elected, I could have sacrificed ministerial berth like I did during downsizing in 2005 for the sake of party and stability of government. The sacrificing moment not only provides more psychological satisfaction than getting cabinet berths but also speaks volume of loyalty to the party and the leadership. In 2005 downsizing, my name was initially included among the 12 cabinet members. However, one day, a key person told me that two retired veteran politicians who are no more MLAs were going to meet CM to drop my name from the cabinet and that CM would not mind if I were to organise my supporters in protest. But instead of organising my supporters to protest and parade them in front of CM, I walked up to CM’s residence and told him that I was happy that he included my name in the cabinet.
Nevertheless, I told CM that I understood his difficulties to downsize from more than 30 ministers to 12 and so I wanted to sacrifice my cabinet berth to protect his leadership and stability of government. So I sacrificed voluntarily.
The following day, the same key person came and told me that my name was not among the cabinet but that I would be more powerful than any other cabinet minister as I would be the lone parliamentary secretary. The files of more than 10 departments were to be routed to CM through parliamentary secretary (me). And for this reason, the lone parliamentary secretary (me) could have been more powerful than any other cabinet minister.
I saw the final list and I was the only parliamentary secretary to be inducted. After seeing the list, I walked to CM’s office and told him that to ensure stability of the government, equal number of parliamentary secretaries should be inducted as that of cabinet ministers. And that I should not be alone. Then, the CM immediately called the then chief secretary and commissioner & secretary but they rejected the idea of inducting more parliamentary secretaries as even in earlier cases also only Shri Ihezhe was appointed as a parliamentary secretary. At one point of time, Shri Tsutongse Sangtam was also the lone parliamentary secretary.
I replied that nothing was found mentioned in the rules and procedures about the limitation of number of parliamentary secretaries to be inducted. With the assistance of lawyers, we studied and came to the possibility of inducting more parliamentary secretaries and 13 of us were inducted as parliamentary secretaries. So there started the culture of inducting numerous parliamentary secretaries in the state all because I sacrificed cabinet berth and settled with the post of a parliamentary secretary.
So as per my experience, I would like to make a sincere appeal to all elected NPF leaders to first take into consideration the welfare of the party and stability of the government. In the long run, the NPF will recognise all those who sacrificed for the sake of party and will be rewarded accordingly. If I were elected, by seeing the present scenario, I would have sacrificed like I did in 2005 which opened the way for accommodating more parliamentary secretaries. We had more problems during downsizing but we survived. Recognition by the party and CM is more important.
