President's Rule should not have been imposed in Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand has been placed under President's Rule because the Modi sarkar is taking the prime minister's election slogan of ushering in Congress-mukt Bharat to extreme limits. Barring Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur, Congress is now not in power in any state. Kerala, it may be recalled, is going to polls shortly, and it wouldn't be politically appropriate to consider it as a Congress-governed state.
Arun Jaitley, one of the trimurti at the top of the Bharatiya Janata Party pyramid, has said the state had to be brought under central rule because the state government was "unconstitutional" and "immoral". Yet, the Centre's step is itself both unconstitutional and immoral.
The issue of constitutional propriety of the government's decision to hand over the reins of the administration to the governor, KK Paul, will be eventually decided by the Uttarakhand High Court in the case which the Congress party has filed before it.
The issue of morality will decided in assembly elections whenever they are held and this verdict would be pronounced in the people's court in the form of the next mandate. If the BJP secures a majority, Jaitley can smugly say that his contention was correct. But if the state either presents a hung verdict or the Congress secures a majority, he will surely have egg on his face.
Concerns about the constitutionality of the Centre's decision stems from two issues. Article 356 of the Constitution can be used to impose central rule if the government concludes - on the basis of a governor's report - that there has been a breakdown of the constitutional mechanism or there is a serious law and order situation which requires central intervention as the state government's fairness and alacrity cannot be trusted. In the case of Uttarakhand, there was neither any law and order crisis nor a serious violation of the constitutional norms.
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| Jaitley dubbed the Rawat government as unconstitutional and immoral. |
The second issue is that the entire case of the government is based on an anticipated matter - that the governor reportedly feared unsavoury events in the course of the trust vote which was due on Tuesday, March 29. KK Paul's worry was that there would be pandemonium in the House during the vote of confidence.
In his report to the Centre, he cited the sting operation on Harish Rawat to argue that there was a possibility of large scale horse trading. Imposing President's Rule on the basis of apprehension of the governor is akin to preventive arrest - where a person is detained by police on the basis of the assessment of the police that a person can be a danger to public law and order if he is allowed to stay scot free.
But while law and order can be maintained on the basis of assessment of police, President's Rule cannot be imposed on the basis of anticipated impropriety. Especially by a regime whose leader, the prime minister, swears by the mantra of cooperative federalism. What has happened in Uttarakhand is neither cooperative nor federal in character.
The government has cited the events on March 18 during the passage of the state budget to argue that Uttarkhand had been reduced to a state without a Budget. In his Facebook post, Jaitley has made several points - most importantly that the Congress party in the state legislative assembly had split and nine members left the party. This reduced the government to a minority and it technically failed to pass the Appropriation Bill required to sanction expenditure from April 1.
He argues that the rebel MLAs joined BJP legislators to demand division during passage of the Appropriation Bill but the Speaker chose to reject the demand and pass the Budget by voice vote. In his argumentative post, Jaitley makes no mention if he has considered whether these nine legislators violated the Anti-Defection Act and if not, then why.
This has been the second instance in quick succession where the BJP has disregarded the anti-defection law while strategising to dismiss a democratically elected government. The first instance was in Arunachal Pradesh in January and now this has been repeated in the hill state.
The second aspect of the unsavoury episode is its political dimension. The BJP has imposed central rule and after initial signals that it was keen to replace the Rawat ministry with its own, the party has now indicated that it would rather wait and go to the polls.
This is clearly being done because the BJP fears that any attempt to induct rebel Congress legislators in the party or get them to form a party or block and either join the BJP government or extend it support may land the BJP in a legal soup and this the party does not wish to risk. It is one thing to stick one's neck out and dismiss a government but another matter to form a government with support from rebels who have broken away from the parent party using questionable means.
The near certain decision of the BJP to keep the state under President's Rule and go in for polls after a short spell leaves the Congress rebels as the biggest losers. In any case, elections were due in the normal course in Uttarakhand along with Punjab, Manipur and Goa. The basic objective of Vijay Bahuguna to force a rebellion - with his son Saket leading the brigade - was to become chief minister once more and this is simply not possible.
There is also no certainty that the BJP will induct the Congress rebels into its fold. Moreover, even if they are taken into the party, old-timers in the BJP will raise a banner of revolt if any of the new entrants are given more favourable positions. At best the rebels would be handed a few seats in addition to the nine that the rebels currently hold. That would hardly be anywhere near to their basic objective when they chose to destabilise the Rawat ministry.
Coming close to events in Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP is increasingly showing signs of paying scant regard to constitutional norms and this doesn't portend well for the future of the country.
On its part, the Congress too has been caught napping. The party would have been well aware that the BJP would leave no stone unturned to destabilise Congress regimes in various states. In such a state, it needed to put its house in order and call faction leaders from states where they were warring and force them to sit across the table and hammer out a truce settlement.
The leadership needed to act like an arbitrator and convince various factions that it was better to share political power than not have power at all. The Congress did not act in time in Assam where a group left the party and was inducted into the BJP. If this works to the BJP's benefit in the forthcoming polls, the BJP can be expected to follow a similar strategy in Uttarakhand.
The Congress cannot continue to remain complacent and it must assess the situation in Karnataka, Manipur and Himachal Pradesh to ensure that the BJP is not able to oust the governments in those two states. If the Congress is content making self goals, the BJP can only be expected to violate propriety.