The Centre has been given time till October 10 to get back to the Supreme Court with the outcome of the political consultations on government formation in Delhi. The deadline was set by the court on Tuesday, the day after the Aam Aadmi Party released videos of a sting operation purportedly framing the BJP trying to “buy” its legislators. There isn’t much that the apex court can — or should — do to put in place a government other than nudging the Centre to initiate and expedite the process. Government formation is a political-legislative process in which parties are the lead players. Yet, the court’s deadline is an opportunity to take stock of the prolonged impasse in Delhi — and to acknowledge that a fresh election seems the only solution.
Last year’s assembly election had delivered a fractured verdict, with both the BJP and AAP falling short of a simple majority. After the BJP, the single-largest party with 31 MLAs, declined to form the government, the AAP assumed office with support from the Congress, only to quit after 49 days of mutual sniping and street theatre. By all accounts, with all three parties taking intractable positions since then, the chances of any two of them setting aside their differences and coming together to form a government look bleak, if not impossible; even if it were to be formed, such a government looks unviable at birth. In the absence of a tie-up between parties, a government can only be formed if the party seeking office succeeds in wooing MLAs from rival parties. Plainly put, forming a new government in Delhi would be difficult without “horse trading”.
The best option in this situation is to call for a fresh election and hope that voters give a clear verdict this time. As the seat of the Union government, political goings-on in Delhi have a larger resonance and the BJP, in particular, must remind itself of Delhi’s special place in the national landscape. It has recently won a decisive mandate at the Centre and appears poised to perform well in the assembly elections scheduled for this year. Any overzealousness on its part to form the government in Delhi now, by fair means and foul, would cast a grim shadow on the party that is still basking in its Lok Sabha success.
