NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
THE STATES
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES
SEARCH REDIFF

Search the Internet          Tips

What's wrong with President's rule anyway?

Uproar in Lok Sabha'. 'MPs storm well of House'. 'LS adjourned following uproar'. 'MPs stage walkout'.

Are you, like me, sick and tired of seeing these headlines?

Even in a corporation school, kids would have been bent over and given six of the best for behaving half as badly. But apparently, such norms do not apply for the rulers of the nation.

And what are these walkouts, these protests, all about anyway?

Trivia. Pure and simple grandstanding. Take just one recent instance -- the protests against the decision to impose President's rule in Uttar Pradesh.

Forget the hoopla for a moment and ask yourself this -- what exactly is wrong with such a move?

Apparently it will be a defeat for the democratic process.

Really? The democratic process was undermined the day political parties moved away from common programmes and agendas voters could identify with and support, and shifted the focus to casteist and communal politics. Thus, if today the verdict is fractured, it is because political parties fractured the electorate on narrow, sectarian lines.

But the Congress and other Opposition parties will have none of it. Apparently the crime committed here is that the "single largest party" was not given a chance to prove its majority.

A leading national newspaper even had this 'analysis', with the headline 'Legal experts flay decision to impose Central rule'. Sandwiched next to ads for weight loss, hair gain and such, this story quoted legal luminaries of the order of MP Fali S Nariman and Supreme Court advocate Jitendra Sharma to the effect that Uttar Pradesh Governor Vishnukant Shastri had, by recommending President's rule in the state, left himself open to judicial challenge.

Two precedents are cited in this article: Rajiv Gandhi circa 1989, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee circa 1996. On both these occasions, the experts argue, the single largest party was invited to form the government, despite not having a majority.

'Precedent', for the record, is defined as "an act or instance that may be used as an example in dealing with subsequent similar instances".

So what do these "precedents" show? In the 1989 general election, the Congress secured 197 seats out of 510. The Janata Dal was second, winning 142 out of 243 contested. And the BJP third, with 86 out of 226 contested.

Rajiv Gandhi was invited to form the government. He refused, pointing out that he did not have a majority.

If anything, one would have thought, this sets a precedent for not inviting the single largest party unless and until it has a majority.

The single largest party in UP today is the Samajwadi Party. Which, when the results were declared, went to the governor and said it would like to take a shot at government formation, but needed one month -- one whole month -- to prove its majority.

Now think back to the famous 13-day BJP government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The parliamentary proceedings of the time were nationally televised, remember? You, and I, watched as every single one of the leaders now walking out of Parliament got up on their hind legs and made impassioned speeches about how it was "morally indefensible" for Vajpayee to have attempted to form a government when he knew he did not have the numbers.

Worse, these same politicians -- and even a whole heap of editorial writers and columnists -- had on that occasion castigated the President for ignoring simple arithmetic and inviting the BJP to take a shot at government formation.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was one of those who spoke out then. Mulayam Singh Yadav is the one seeking a "chance" today. The Congress castigated the BJP then for forming a government. The Congress castigates the BJP today for not letting the SP form a government. Forming a government without numbers was "morally indefensible" then. Not allowing a party without the numbers to form a government is "morally indefensible" today.

The leaders of the Opposition, one and all, blasted the BJP for passing all kinds of official orders during that 13-day tenure, despite knowing that they had "no moral right" to govern. Today, the selfsame Opposition leaders blast the Centre for not giving Mulayam Yadav an opportunity to do exactly that -- push through all kinds of files and papers and orders he has no business even looking at.

Examine the political landscape in UP. The Samajwadi Party has 143 seats, and needs a further 59 to nose itself into the sort of tenuous majority wherein, if an MLA happens to go off to the loo while a vote is being taken, the government will fall.

So who has those seats? The BJP has 88. Will it support the SP? No. The BSP has 98. Will Mayawati back Mulayam? No. The Congress has 25 seats. Will it support a Mulayam government? God knows!

That is to say, when the results were announced, the Congress refused to categorically state its position. "We are playing our cards close to our chest," the Congress spokesman said. Even now, minutes before walking out of the Lok Sabha on the issue, the Congress said that if Mulayam can produce the rest of the numbers, then the Congress will ensure that he gets their support. "We will not allow the Samajwadi Party to fall for the sake of 25 votes," is the Congress party's fence-straddling stand.

Other than these parties, there are 49 seats spread like confetti across the other 86 parties that contested the elections. Of these, 14 are independents -- most of them, actually the BJP in independent guise. Will they back Mulayam? No. Another 14 belong to Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal -- a constituent of the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Will the RLD support the SP? No.

That leaves 21 others. Even assuming that all of them support the SP, they -- plus the Congress -- can raise Mulayam Yadav's strength to just 189 -- a good 13 seats short of majority.

So what is the fuss all about? Simple arithmetic tells you -- as it told the governor -- that the SP is not in a position to form a government. Once the BJP flat out stated that it was going to sit in Opposition, it became evident that the Bahujan Samaj Party could not form a government either.

So what did that leave, other than President's rule?

And yet, ignoring every single principle of common sense, the Congress says the governor should have given the SP "a chance".

By way of amusing sidelight, has the Congress managed to elect its legislative party leader in UP yet -- in other words, pick one of just 25 chappies to be the official party leader in the state assembly? No. Uh oh!

Pramod Tiwari, the incumbent, is one contender. Jagdambika Pal and Ram Naresh Yadav are others. And the decision has been left to -- hold your breath -- the party's president!

When we played street cricket in Chennai, we used to have this convention known as 'last man gaaji'. The thinking was, what happens if the twit batting at number 10 gets out first ball? I am number 11, and I don't get to play, how fair is that? So, by mutual agreement, when the 10th wicket fell, the last man got to bat in solitary splendour till he was dismissed.

Which is okay in street cricket, but how valid is that when it comes to deciding questions of governance? It is, frankly, ridiculous to see political parties squabbling for a "chance" to form the government. And what is worse is that no less an eminence than Atal Bihari Vajpayee now says it is time to think about establishing a convention that the single largest party should get first crack!

This is a democracy, right? In a democracy, the party with the majority forms the government, right? It is all simple and straightforward, right? But now you have parties bringing up this "single largest party" business, and wanting to make that a norm!

Does this imply that all political parties have lost confidence in themselves, in their ability to attain a majority in subsequent elections? So it would seem.

Of course, there is one option -- give the SP the chance, and a month to fail to prove a majority. When it fails, as fail it will, give the BSP next strike, and a month's time. Then give the BJP its turn at bat, followed by the Congress. Then the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Shakti Dal, and all the other Dals that make up the UP political khichdi. And by the time they all try and fail, five years will have passed and we can go in for fresh elections anyway.

All right, that is ridicule by exaggeration -- but when you come to think of it, is it any more ridiculous than suggesting that a party with just 143 seats out of 403 should be given "a chance"?

And for this, they protest, they "storm the well of the house", they condemn the central government and the state governor. Thankfully, no one has yet suggested that the ISI is behind the move to impose President's rule in UP -- but you never know.

And that brings me to the headlines that started this train of thought -- 'Uproar in LS', 'MPs walk out' et al.

Isn't it time for our elected representatives to stop walking out of the House at any and every excuse, given that we -- the people who elected them, and whose taxes go into paying them -- expect them to sit in their seats and spend their time providing governance, and leadership?

Postscript: An earlier column on policemen playing mute spectators during riots produced a lot of mail -- and some ideas worth thinking about. Like Senthil Vinayagam, who said: "Do we have a law to deal with hate crimes? The law sees these crimes as killings, but not as hate crimes. Isn't it time we had a far harsher law to deal with hate crimes? Or alternately, to apply the same laws that govern acts of terrorism? It has to start with putting the law in place, then implementing the law."

Makes sense?

A mail from another reader provoked a debate, which ended with this thought: Today, the police force is politicised, there is no dispute about that. The reason for this is that the politician, and the government, wields power over the lives and careers of the police. Thus, to depoliticise the force, it is necessary to delink it from the political process. How to do that in the existing structure?

Is it time to take control of the police, and even the judiciary, away from the hands of the state and central governments, and hand it over to the President? To have the police and judiciary administered by a core group of administrative officers reporting directly to the President, thus short-circuiting the polity? Will this help?

Food for thought. Bon appetit.

More From Prem Panicker

Elections 2002: The complete coverage