Finally, Shivraj Chouhan Adds Five Ministers To His Cabinet

By L.S. Herdenia

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has taken two important steps to strengthen his team to fight the menace of Covid-19. The first step is the addition of five Ministers and the second is the constitution of an advisory committee. Meanwhile, the central government has sent a team to Indore which is one of the worst Covid-19 affected cities of the country.

It is after the gap of almost one month that Chouhan added five ministers. So far he alone was handling the difficult Corona crisis. Five ministers who took oath on April 21 include two from the Scindia group. They are Tulsi Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput. Both are among them who resigned their Vidhan Sabha seats. They will have to be elected within six months as per the Constitutional provisions. Three others belong to the BJP. They are Narottam Mishra, Kamal Patel and Meena Singh.

After the oath the Chief Minister took an unprecedented decision. Instead of allotting portfolios the ministers were assigned various regions of the state. They have been made in-charge of two revenue divisions each to enable them to supervise an co-ordinate measures to fight the Covid-19 menace. Accordingly Silawat has been put in charge of Indore – MP’s corona hotspot and Sagar divisions. Mishra has been given charge of Bhopal and Ujjain – the other two red zones of MP. Patel will handle Jabalpur and Narmadapuram divisions. Rajput gets Chambal and Gwalior and Meena Singh will look after Rewa and Shahdol divisions.

The CM said the ministers would keep watch on the situation in the districts under their charge and in consultation with local public representatives, officials and public at large, would formulate strategies to overcome the menace.

Soon after the swearing in of ministers, CM called the first cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

Briefing the media, Narottam Mishra said: “There were two main discussions held in the cabinet meeting. The first dealt with the corona virus pandemic in Madhya Pradesh. A presentation was given by top administrative officers on the action taken so far. Ministers participated in the discussion and also gave their suggestions” he said.

The cabinet also decided to increase crop acquisition centres by more than 1,000.

From the day he took oath on March 23 Chouhan has been facing criticism from opposition and also constitution experts that there is no regular government in the state. Only a day before five ministers were added eminent lawyer Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha wrote a letter to the President that M.P. is facing a serious constitutional crisis and also sought his intervention. They pointed out that in Madhya Pradsh chief minister Chouhan alone holds fort of his government and objected to the two financial ordinances promulgated by him, terming them unconstitutional.

Sibal and Tankha accused that Chouhan without the advice of the council of ministers promulgated two financial ordinances, which are unconstitutional.

They argued “We wish to bring to your attention Article 163 of the Constitution which mandates a council of ministers to aid and advice the governor in the exercise of his functions. The governor cannot act without the advice of council of ministers headed by chief minister. Additionally the proviso to the Article 164(A) provides for the minimum strength of the council of ministers to be not less than 12 including the chief minister. Here the council is missing, only the head exists. The governor had therefore without jurisdiction acting on the advicee of Shivraj Singh Chouhan alone promulgated two ordinances. The two ordinances mentioned are the Madhya Pradesh Finance Ordinance 2020 and the Madhya Pradesh Appropriation (Vote on Account) ordinance 2020.”

The letter explained: “These ordinances authorise the state government to burden the state with an additional loan of Rs. 4,443 crore. It also allows for the withdrawal of Rs. 1.66 lakh crore from the consolidated fund. This not only has grave implication on the fiscal health of the state but gives an unconstitutional act, the colour of legality. In Madhya Pradesh constitutional democracy has be reduced to farce.”

The letter also argued: “The chief minister was administered the oath of office on March 23, 2020. No legal impediment stood in the way for him to constitute the cabinet. Since then 28 days have gone by”.

“It is only in extraordinary circumstances that it is permissible to adopt the ordinance making power route in fiscal matters and allow for Vote-on-Account. Here, the conditions precedent in the exercise of the power do not exist. The Madhya Pradesh assembly is in place. The council of ministers can be constituted any day” the Congress leaders said.

RS members Sibal and Tankh appealed to the President to “withdraw the unconstitutional ordinances” constitute council of ministers in Madhya Pradesh and pass Vote-on-Account by following settled constitutional procedures.

The above mentioned letter was sent on Monday and the Ministers were appointed on Tuesday. Now we will have to watch how other issues raised in the letter are resolved.

After realising that the state government is unable control the situation in Indore central government sent a high power team to assess the situation. The team, after assessing the situation decided that a comprehensive Covid-19 screening-cum-survey campaign will be launched in the city from Wednesday. Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) was appointed as the executive agency and its staff will be carrying it out.

This decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Abhilakshya Likhi of the central team. Likhi said there is urgent need for public awareness. For this, he gave necessary guidelines to the Collector and IMC Commissioner Likhi got information about survey work, screening etc. being done from door-to-door and said it should be further expended. (IPA Service)