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Uttarakhand HC axing President's Rule is major embarrassment for BJP

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Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
Nilanjan MukhopadhyayApr 21, 2016 | 18:50

Uttarakhand HC axing President's Rule is major embarrassment for BJP

The Uttarakhand High Court quashing President's Rule in the state, restoring the Harish Rawat government and fixing a new date for the floor test is a huge legal setback and political embarrassment for the Narendra Modi government.

Since less than a month ago, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley was the most vocal defendant of the Centre's strategy, suggesting that he was the de facto scriptwriter of the drama in the hills, the high court's directive is a personal loss of face for him.

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It needs to be recalled that Jaitley provided an elaborate case for justifying Central rule in the state in a Facebook post titled "A State Without a Budget" in which the thrust was on the circumstances under which the imposition of President's Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution was permissible.

Jaitley wrote: "There can be no better example of implementation of Article 356." 

The post was extremely ironical coming from a minister of a party that routinely promised to end the misuse of Article 356 in election manifestos. The sordid saga in the hill state exposes the fact that for all the fulminations of the BJP against the Congress for attacking state autonomy and all of Modi's glib talk about cooperative federalism, in practice, the BJP is no different.

In fact, it remains on the prowl for the slightest opening to dismiss governments run by other parties.

The high court was as scathing as it gets in Thursday's (April 21) ruling because it accused the government of trying to play with the court. It must be kept in mind that the court has reserved its verdict for later. But because the court does not trust the Centre any longer - after government counsel refused to guarantee that the Centre would not revoke President's Rule and try to get the BJP to form the government in the state before the court's final verdict - the two-judge bench decided to quash the President's Rule on Thursday itself.

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This is a double snub for the Centre - the high court held the President's Rule was wrongly imposed and added that it had no faith in the government. It is one matter for either political opponents or people to say that they had no faith left in the government but another matter when courts too say the same.

The BJP acted in a hasty manner in Uttarakhand because the Modi government decided to take the prime minister's election promise of ushering in a Congress-mukt Bharat to extreme limits. Coming close on the heels of another cloak and dagger operation in Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP brass believed that it could dislodge one Opposition government after another.

modi-shah_042116064723.jpg
The Modi government decided to take the PM's poll promise of ushering in a Congress-mukt Bharat to extreme limits.  

Even before the din from the hills died down, there were murmurs within the BJP that the action brigade of the party would now look eastward - towards Manipur where a similar "operation dislodge" would be undertaken soon.

This is not the first time that the Centre has ended up with a bloody nose after wrongly imposing President's Rule using Article 356. A similar embarrassment was caused by the Supreme Court's verdict in January 2006 when it declared the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly as null and void in the Buta Singh case.

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The only difference at that time was that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was in power and the governor had refused to allow a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Nitish Kumar (in coalition with the BJP) to take the oath of office after the February 2005 Assembly polls.

At that time, the apex court stated that "drastic and extreme action under Article 356" cannot be justified according to the whims and fancies of the governor. In the case of Uttarkhand, it appears that the governor's report was more in the nature of secondary evidence and written much after a political decision to dislodge the Harish Rawat government had been taken.

From what has happened so far, the Uttarakhand High Court had clearly endorsed the SR Bommai case judgment of the apex court which emphatically stated that the majority of a government has to be proved on the floor of the House and is not open to subjective assessment of the governor.

A similar plea was made by the governor of Arunachal Pradesh and the Supreme Court is hearing that matter too. The Uttarakhand High Court has also ruled that it does not believe the assertions of the Modi government as far as cooperative federalism and constitutionalism is concerned.

The restoration of the Rawat ministry, irrespective of the outcome of the floor test on April 29, will once again make the case for a thorough review of Article 356.

Politically, the high court quashing the President's Rule in Uttarakhand is embarrassing for the BJP because it will strengthen forces of reason and restraint within the party and the Sangh Parivar. The decision could, in the long run, precipitate a change in the balance of power at the highest echelons of the party and government.

The decision will also hearten the Opposition parties, and in the middle of the electoral season, it will strengthen those parties which have a consistent position on the review of Article 356.

Rawat will now head to the floor test with greater confidence. He may also be able to secure support of those rebel Congress MLAs who were willing to cross over to the other side, but would not do so now because they were able to see through the BJP's game and realise that there was little gain for them in facilitating the fall of the Congress regime.

The Uttarkhand episode was a huge tactical blunder by the BJP and this would have the wider impact of restoring the confidence of the BJP's opponents.

Last updated: April 22, 2016 | 12:57
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