Hidden somewhere in the political crisis that rocked Uttarakhand and the Centre is the lesson that it’s best to first allow democratic principles and institutions
to play out the script before intervening. When nine rebel Congress MLAs defected and were subsequently disqualified by the Speaker, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court, the Centre should have allowed the Assembly to function and a floor test to be held. Instead it rushed in and declared President’s rule and now it has to eat humble pie. On Monday, a court-assisted floor test was held and the result favoured the Congress and the government of Harish Rawat.
Soon after the vote, the BJP virtually conceded defeat, but
the result was made official on Wednesday and the score was
33 in favour of the Congress and 28 for the BJP. There was some
cross voting but it did not affect the overall score. The Congress
was helped by the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF)
which gave the ruling side six crucial votes. Thanks to some
hand-holding by the high court and
Supreme Court, a democratically
elected government has been restored
and rule of law upheld. The
BJP and the government of Narendra
Modi have been given an important
lesson in governance.
The Centre has lost face and the
Congress has emerged triumphant.
The party has something to gloat
about at a time when its leader, Sonia
Gandhi is under direct attack in the Agusta Westland helicopter
deal. Uttarakhand might be a small state, but the outcome
of this political crisis will have a far reaching impact on
the rest of the country and the use or misuse of Article 356.
Politics is about erecting and bringing down governments.
There is an inherent belief that the job of the opposition is to
bring down the government, which might be a legitimate pursuit,
if conducted within the ambit of the law. There was a time
when governments rose and fell with regularity in some states,
but incremental plugging of loopholes has made it more difficult
for MLAs to defect. The general rule now is that defection
automatically brings on disqualification and that is why
the nine Congress MLAs lost their seats. It would have been
a perversity of law had they been allowed to vote on the floor
of the House. By intervening, the Supreme Court has delicately
steered Uttarakhand back on the rails of democracy, in the
process pointing out the errors committed by the Centre and
getting it to adhere to the rules of the game. A lot of water has
flowed under the bridge since the time when Article 356 was
misused to bring down governments with Governors playing
partisan roles in this rape of democracy. The S R Bommai case
is now the gold standard on use of Article 356, but in the case
of Uttarakhand it was the swiftness with which the high court
moved that forced everyone to push for a quick solution.
What makes misuse of Article 356 possible is the slow process
of restoration by the courts. Political developments occur
at breakneck speed, while the remedy could take months if not
years. More often than not the solutions come too late. This is
where the Uttarakhand crisis differs from the others. It is the
speed with which the judiciary intervened that helped restore
normalcy. Hopefully, the turn of events and the fact that it ended
on the losing side will make the Centre think twice before
attempting to engineer defections in order to bring down Congress
governments in the states.
