Precept and practice

Whatever be the Lok Sabha's verdict on the imposition of President's rule in Bihar, it is certain that the Rajya Sabha will not ratify it...

Whatever be the Lok Sabha’s verdict on the imposition of President’s rule in Bihar, it is certain that the Rajya Sabha will not ratify it. And once the motion is defeated in the Upper House, the reinstallation of the Rashtriya Janata Dal government is only a matter of time. This is a lesson for all political parties that in this era of coalition politics it is almost impossible for the central government to dismiss a state government. But then they have only themselves to blame for this.

The founding fathers of the Constitution had incorporated Article 356 in the Constitution with a view to meeting extraordinary situations. Certain safeguards were also provided to prevent its misuse. But over the last nearly half a century, the Centre has wantonly misused the Article for its petty political ends. It is ironical that while most parties criticise what they perceive as the “misuse” of the Article when they are out of power, they never resist the temptation to “misuse” it when they get an opportunity to doso.

The Congress, which is now opposed to the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government, in fact, holds a record for misusing the Article. So great has been the extent of misuse that it is indeed difficult for a dispassionate observer to justify even one dismissal, ever since the first one that saw the first communist ministry in Kerala thrown out in 1959.

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This provoked, in turn, judicial intervention to make the imposition of President’s rule a cumbersome process for the Centre. The parties which now loudly complain about the regressive nature of the judgment in the Bommai case do so only when their own political interests are adversely affected.

It is akin to the BJP praising the President for rejecting the Gujral government’s recommendation on President’s rule in Uttar Pradesh and finding fault with him when he did exactly the same thing in the earlier case involving Bihar. It is worth noting that the Kalyan Singh government would not have been in place but for the timely intervention by the court toundo the wrong a governor sought to commit.

Again, it is on the basis of the difficulties the government will have to face in invoking Article 356 that the Vajpayee government has been turning down demands from its allies like the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal, which are all keen to have the governments in their respective states dismissed for no other reason than that they can’t stand them. Incidentally, the Indian National Lok Dal, of Chautala fame, which withdrew support to the BJP government, is unhappy not because Article 356 was used in Bihar but because it was not used against the Bansi Lal government in Haryana.

The basic problem is that no political party has a definite stand on the utility of Article 356. It is precisely for this reason that despite several meetings the Standing Committee of the Inter-State Council could not reach a consensus on Article 356. What’s worse, they could not even agree on some safeguards against its misuse.

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It is significant that one partywhich stoutly and consistently opposed even the retention of the Article in the Constitution — the Akali Dal — was the first to issue a whip to its members to vote for the ratification of the dismissal of the RJD ministry. Small wonder then that political parties increasingly find themselves in knots over Article 356.