It is quite intriguing to observe how politicians become Cabinet Ministers and Chief Minister. They travel hazardous roads to reach this pinnacle. In due course, they meet many characters who shape, dictate, help, and plan their career. Many are helped by so-called followers.
Sometimes it also happens that the politician is already an established leader but needs a second term as Cabinet Minister or Chief Minister, but the atmosphere is not conducive for the party to win second time. Sometimes a known coterie which runs TV, newspaper, sugar mill and liquor business in the state assure the leader of dividing the opposition party, funding it, and seeing to it that the divided faction gets the desired legislatures to form the government. The idea is implemented. The leader gets elected second time as Chief Minister with the help of the faction of the divided opposition. Now the problem starts. The coterie now starts demanding their pound of flesh. It is double edged sword. The faction of the breakaway group share the power and coterie starts demanding a share out of the state exchequer in the shape of advertisements to their TV, newspapers, waiver of loans to sugar mill farmers, and allotment of liquor shops. Top ranking civil servants soon get an idea about the tide and they also start favoring the coterie. In one state, the Chief Minister is under tremendous pressure to clear even backdated bills of advertisements which his predecessor issued. The coterie gets payment released on priority whereas other vendors keep waiting for months. Not only this, in the era of Covid-19, the power sharing partner mints money by reportedly selling the stock of the liquor from the back door and Chief Minister was forced to control the damage. One has to pay the price for the crown after all!
