Why Harish Rawat's government stands to fall in Uttarakhand

Congress-ruled Uttarakhand government has been seeing turmoil after nine of the grand old party's MLAs rebelled against it and joined the BJP on March 18. Their intention is to topple the Harish Rawat government.

In the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly, chief minister Harish Rawat has a thin majority. While the Congress has 36 MLAs, the BJP 28. The government heavily relies on Independent MLAs for stability.

Developments so far

On March 18, 27 BJP MLAs and nine rebel Congress MLAs arrived in Delhi in a bid to replace Harish Rawat as the chief minister. The nine Congress rebel MLAs included former chief minister Vijay Bahugana and former Cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat, who was expelled on March 19.

The rebel MLAs were first holed up in a hotel in Gurgaon and have now been moved to an undisclosed location so that they are not forced to change their decision.

Uttarakhand governor KK Paul, meanwhile, has written to chief minister Harish Rawat to prove majority in the Assembly before March 28. He has also sent his report on the current political situation in the state to the Centre.

Rawat claims he has "full majority".

On March 21, Uttarakhand state Congress expelled former CM Bahuguna's son Saket Bahuguna and party's general secretary Anil Gupta. The Congress believes that it was Saket who "master-minded" the revolt.

A heated exchange

Assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal said the "anti-defection law is in place and whoever is found guilty of violating it will have to be acted against".

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took the opportunity to lash out against the BJP and said the Congress will fight demagoguery with democracy. "Toppling elected governments by indulging in horse trading and blatant misuse of money and muscle, seems to be BJP's new model, after failure in Bihar... This attack on our democracy and Constitution, first in Arunachal and now Uttarakhand, is the true face of Narendra Modi's BJP," he said.

The BJP hit back asking the Congress to put its own house in order. "There is a deep division in the Congress in Uttarakhand... It cannot be attributable to the BJP... In Uttarakhand, speaker considered a failed Bill as passed. This is happening for the first time in the country," he said.

Background

After the results of the Uttarakhand Assembly elections were announced in March 2012, Harish Rawat, the obvious choice to claim the CM's chair was overlooked by the Congress. Instead they chose Vijay Bahugana, considered a light weight. While Rawat was the Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs in the Manmohan Singh government, Bahuguna was only a two-time MP from Tehri Garhwal.

Bahuguna is said to have won favour due to his alleged proximity to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Dissent in the Congress is not new and has been brewing for some time now. Rawat was denied the CM's post in 2002 as well, when the first election to Uttarakhand Assembly was held. 

In 2012, a sulking Rawat caused panic in the party by going underground. Despite being an Union minister, he even skipped the tabling of the Railway Budget in Parliament. This also caused a majot upheaval in the Uttarakhand government. Bahuguna was in a spot after he failed to form his Cabinet four days after taking the oath, as 16 of the 32 MLAs owed allegiance to Rawat.

The Congress in Uttarakhand has been on a sticky wicket since.

When Harish Rawat was finally sworn-in as CM on February 1, 2014 - a year after the devastating floods in the state which put the blame squarely on Bahugana, and the party panicked after a poor show in four other states - the political situation seemed to stabalise but only for a while.

Distrust within the party soon began to resurface. The Bahuguna camp started feeling alienated. They felt exluded from Cabinet positions and key administrative roles. 

Bahuguna sniffed the opportunity and has since been hurting for a rebellion.

What next

Scenario 1: Rawat fails to prove majority on the floor of the Assembly on March 28. The governor calls the BJP, the second largest party, to form government. The BJP forms government with the help of nine rebel Congress MLAs.

Scenario 2: Rawat fails to prove majority on the floor of the House, but the BJP, instead of forming government, ask for President's rule. This either helps the BJP to keep the House in suspended animation for a few months, or gives it time to prepare for early elections. (The elections are anyway due in February-March 2017.) 

Scenario 3: Rawat somehow manages to cobble up a majority and wins the trust vote. However, this government will still lack stability and struggle to complete its term before elections are announced early in 2017.

What happens on March 28? Watch this space for more.