Unfortunate how Modi is bullying non-BJP state governments

When Narendra Modi became the prime minister of our country, it was at the very least expected that he would be able to understand the problems of chief ministers. After all, he was the chief minister of Gujarat before he became the country's prime minister. It was reasoned that since he had been the chief minister of a big state, his calls for "cooperative federalism" and "Team India" would be acted upon.

However, the country has seen unprecedented disconnect between the Centre and the states in the last 18 months - or the time that the Modi government has been in power - when not only have the bridges of cooperation been burnt, the Union government has applied all the machineries at its disposal for political vendetta and to paralyse governance at the level of the states.

In the first few months of coming to power, the Planning Commission, the critical platform where the states put forward their concerns and learnt best practices, was abolished by Modi and replaced with what is turning out to be a largely misaligned and a confused body - the Niti Aayog.

Then, for the sake of personal machismo, Modi either transferred or changed most of the state governors. Those BJP elders who cried foul and claimed governor appointments were an "assault on the federal structure" were nowhere to defend the actions of their supreme leader after May 2014.

A case in point is the former governor of Gujarat, Kamla Beniwal, who had taken on the Modi government in Gujarat by appointing a strong Lokayukta in 2006. Sushma Swaraj, the then Leader of Opposition, had demanded her resignation for having "violated the Constitution of India and its federal character" in 2011 by allegedly not consulting the chief minister, Modi, for the ombudsman's appointment.

Within days of Modi taking oath ("I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill will") as the prime minister, the 87-year-old Beniwal was transferred to Mizoram, a place which the present government considers fit to send people on "exile". Within days, she was sacked while three months of her term were still remaining.

The same post has now seen five more governors in the past 16 months since she vacated the office. Similarly, more than ten other governors - all proven administrators - like Sheila Dikshit and MK Narayanan, were either shown the door or threatened with dire consequences so that they would vacate the position.

If this wasn't enough, their replacements have made a habit of regularly usurping the powers of the elected representatives or staying in the headlines for one issue or the other. This ensures that the Union government's failure to deliver on the 2014 election promises gets shielded. It's when the governors remain partisan and/or don't abandon their association with organisations even after their oath to office that crisis like the one in Arunachal Pradesh unfolds.

The Congress has close to two-third majority in the state Assembly. The governor, who was constitutionally envisaged to work on the aid and advice of the chief minister and his council of ministers, has taken it in his own hands to ignore the requests of the state's ruling party, appoint the speaker at his own discretion and set the agenda and the duration of the Assembly's session.

In complete violation of the sanctity of out federal structure and the separation of powers, the governor, without the knowledge of the elected chief minister, requisitioned the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to the state.

The Union government, in its arrogance, considers it pertinent to confront the elected state governments - either indirectly through governors or by directly bypassing standard protocols. For instance, it was not considered necessary that the chief minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, be invited to an IT industry event when German chancellor Angela Merkel visited the capital of his own administration.

Invitation to the chief minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, for the unveiling of the statue of a former chief minister, who also belonged to the Congress and was the former president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee was withdrawn. The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, was kept in dark on discussions relating to appointment of the governor.

And the list goes on. Is this "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas"?

Another hypocrisy characterising Modi's tenure relates to the operations of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Our prime minister was quoted on June 2013 as saying, "CBI has become the Congress Bureau of Investigation. The nation has lost faith in the CBI. I would like to tell the Centre - do not show us the fear of CBI. CBI can not deviate us from the path of development." The present finance minister, Arun Jaitley, was quoted as saying, "UPA had mastered the art of manipulating the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation)."

So now when the CBI raids the residence of India's senior-most chief minister, Virbhadra Singh when his daughter is getting married, or registers false cases against Sachin Pilot and former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, or more recently, raids Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's secretariat, it doesn't take a lot to establish that the CBI is being grossly misused with hunting orders coming directly from the prime minister's office (PMO) and the North Block.

The same BJP, which rules at the Centre, didn't intend to investigate the horrific Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, in which 50 people had allegedly died, until the Supreme Court lashed out at its inaction. Those very people who left no stone unturned to blame the Congress and the UPA for everything, today stand exposed beyond any shred of doubt.

The makers of the Indian Constitution, while giving us the "federal in form and unitary in spirit" governance structure had also commented that excess power to the Union was a temporary grant for "maintenance of unity and solidarity" of a young nation. And that over the period of time, the true federal character of the nation will emerge.

In the last decade or so, we have been witnessing massive mandates for state leaders. The collaboration of these state governments with massive mandates and the Union government is the need of the hour.

This is what the large number of people wanted when they voted for the BJP and Modi in the 2014 general election on the plank of "cooperative federalism" and "Team India", not the overt use of the nation's police to threaten elected representatives of states or attempts of running state governments down through parachuted proxies. Should we start to call the CBI the "Crippled Bureau of Investigation"?