Who does Ramanujam invite to form govt?
MGP and BJP were in a pre-poll alliance and together had 16, still 5 short of numbers and two short of the Cong.
Churchill-led UGDP did the same what Vijai did now, he told the Congress we will support you only if Dotor is made CM. Ditto with the three Independents...
But the Digvijays of those days weren’t impressed..GK Moopanar, J Poojary and Ghulam Nabi Azad, oversaw a similar (like today) drama to elect CLP leader. They announced a secret ballot and only Rane Senior filed his claim. Dotor, falsely assured that the “High Command” would follow conventions and re-annoint him (sitting CM who leads party in polls) dashed to Delhi.
But here Rane Sr got elected CLP leader in Dotor’s absence and became CM. The story didn’t end there...
The MGP-BJP combine then explored govt formation. The three UGDP and three Ind MLAs-elect extended support but the 4-member BJP didn’t play ball. Unlike today, the BJP and specifically Manohar Parrikar said the people’s mandate is not for us (alliance) to form govt and poured cold water. That’s not all, Parrikar even told the media (which he later retracted) that the BJP will give issue-based support to a Rane-led minority govt.
The drama didn’t end there. The Rane camp, directed by Rane jr, and comprising the ‘gang of four’ Luizinho, Mauvin, Zuwarkar and Narvekar, went on and converted four MGP MLAs-elect (Wilfred Mesquita, Deo Mandrrkar, Chandrakant Chodankar and Jagdish Acharya) into Congress MLAs-elect even before these gentlemen could take oath as MLAs..Those were the days of the Xth Schedule where one-third of the legislature party could defect..And behold, Rane was sworn-in CM by Gov Ramanujam (I still remember the idli we journos were served at Cabo).
As shockingly as Siddharth is today, Somnath Zuwarkar was appointed Speaker Pro-tem then!
All that we have to wait and see is will Siddharth, as Pro-tem Speaker repeat the ‘Sirsat-elected, Tomazinho selected’ destruction of the institution called Speaker, to respect the “history repeats itself” adage.
History not only repeats, it sometimes comes back to haunt!
FOOTNOTE
Luizinho, who by-far led the Congress charge this election finds himself today in the same ‘victim’ boots he forced his one-time mentor the late ‘Dotor’ into in 1994.
