Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Orissa Governor has allowed Sri Navin Patnaik to continue as Chief Minister and to show his strength in the Assembly for which a special session has been posted to 11th this month wherein a motion of confidence on him would be tested.
Horse-trading is a way that helps a government in such a situation. It helps a government to survive a no-confidence motion or to win a confidence motion, when a Prime Minister or a Chief Minister in our country gets denuded of majority.
Members of the Loksabha or of an Assembly who rush to the rescue of a PM or a CM to whom they had till then been opposing, notwithstanding how much ethicality they marshal, attract attention that peoples, who put premium on probity should never have cherished, because usually these fellows generate situations that instigate the public to speculate on their rate in horse-trading.
So, in a confidence vote, a PM or a CM may win; but the MPs or the MLAs who help him / her win never again win back their own place in public esteem. They may be truly good fellows whose change of stance might have been based on probity and principles; but the shadow of horse-trading keeps them shrouded forever.
On 11th , this ignominy will await for some in Orissa.
It could have been avoided had the Governor dismissed Navin the moment he lost his position as leader of the BJD-BJP coalition and appointed him afresh as the chief minister in his capacity of being the leader of the majority party BJD.
But the Governor has failed to use democratic wisdom.