Central Hall – Council Anyone?

Mumbai: Going by the Congress move to field a second candidate for the May 21 biennial elections to 9 Legislative Council seats from the Elected by Members of the Legislative Assembly (EMLAs), it does seem as though the Congress is in the mood of forcing a voting in the election. It must have raised the anxiety levels for Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and his Shiv Sena, for whom the whole exercise is being conducted so that he gets to keep his chair intact.

Whether it is a pressure tactics on the part of the Congress to get its fair share of the apple pie, only time will tell when it comes to withdrawing of nomination papers on May 14. Last day for filing of nomination papers is May 11. For the next five days, the state of Maharashtra which has been in the grips of a serious COVID-19 pandemic will be witnessing an unsavory political game of brinkmanship.

It remains to be seen as to who blinks first – the Congress or its arch rival the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Given the numbers game, it is the Congress and the BJP who are at the moment taking a gamble. While the Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) anxious enough not to get caught in the cross-fire and loose a tooth or two in the bargain.

Little would have the Election Commission of India (ECI) bargained for this kind of a situation when it agreed to the pleas of the political executive and agreed to lift the stay it had imposed on the Legislative Council polls on May 1. It then had argued that it did not want a constitutional crisis to grip Maharashtra and alluded that Thackeray needs to get elected to either of the two houses of the state legislature before May 27, so that a constitutional requirement is met.

Also Read: Central Hall – Misplaced Priorities?

To buttress its argument in favor of agreeing to hold the elections even as the whole country is battling, trying to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, it cited examples of how it had stepped in to save the country from being plunged into a constitutional crisis, citing extra ordinary situation. Be it the 1991 election of Prime Minister P V Narsimha Rao, 1996 election of Prime Minister H D Dewe Gowda, elections of Chief Minister’s – Ashok Gehlot (199, Rajasthan), Rabri Devi (1997, Bihar), Vijay Bhaskar Reddy (1993, Andhra Pradesh), Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and four Ministers in 2017 and Chief Minister of Nagaland in 2017.

For a moment everybody had thought that Uddhav Thackeray will get to retain his chair without much of a hiccup. Both the ECI and the people battling the pandemic appear to have been caught on the wrong foot.

It has once again revived the debate on the efficacy of having a bicameral state legislature, given the way in which it is often subjected to pressure tactics. Hardly six states in the country – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh have the legislative council, the upper house.

As against this seven states have abolished the upper house – Assam 1969, Bombay 1960, Jammu and Kashmir 2019, Madhya Pradesh 1969, Punjab 1969, Tamil Nadu 1986 and West Bengal 1969.

Andhra Pradesh had scrapped the upper house once in 1985, only to revive it in 2007 and now once again recommending its dissolution. Ironically enough, the pleas of Odisha, Rajasthan and Assam for setting up the legislative council are pending before the Parliament. The Parliamentary Committee that is going through the plea of Rajasthan has called for a national policy on the need for setting up bicameral legislatures.

On January 28, earlier this year Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy has sent a resolution to the Center recommending the dissolution of the upper house in his state. Reason being, his political rival the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which is in majority in the upper house had blocked one of his legislations.

A similar line of argument was put-forth by Janata Dal (Secular) MLA Nihal Ahmed in 1993 when he too in a fit of rage had moved a resolution calling for the dissolution of the upper house in Maharashtra, following row over the unveiling of Dr B R Ambedkar statue in the Vidhan Bhavan premises.  

The classic and usual argument’s over the years against having the upper house by its opponents is that it is a drain on the state exchequer. It blocks important pieces of legislation and that it has become a refuge for those who cannot get elected in a direct election.

Another argument that is put-forth is over the type of constituencies, qualifications required and people who get to represent them. For example – one need not be a councilor to represent the Local Authorities constituency that covers civic bodies in the state. Likewise, one need not be a Graduate to represent a Graduate constituency. Neither it is required that you have to be Teacher to represent the Teachers constituency.

But for being a voter in these constituencies, you need to be a corporator, a graduate and a teacher. Ironically enough a voter registers his or her name for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, for life. But not so, especially in case of Graduates and Teachers, where one has to re-register ones name every six years. Which is hard to explain as to why?

Recently, the more hotly debated constituency in the upper house was that of the Governor Nominated member’s constituency.  It was in the news as the Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) wanted the Governor to nominate Thackeray to one of the constituencies which had limited membership tenure left to expire. It caused quite a bitter acrimony between the Sena, Congress and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari. The latter simply put the ball in the ECI court.

In the case of Governor Nominated constituency, over the years rarely has the norm of nominating prominent personalities who otherwise cannot get elected in direct elections are nominated so that their experience in their respective fields enriches the legislations enacted by the legislature.

Gone are the days when the likes of Jaganath Shunkerseth (1862), Mahadev Govind Ranade (1885), Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1901), Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Sarojini Babar, Gajanan Digambar Madgulkar alias Ga Di Ma or Ga Di Madgulkar, Shakuntala Paranjpye (!958) were nominated to the august, upper house. Rajya Sabha does follow that practice of nominating people like Lata Mangeshkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rekha, Mary Kom and others over the years.

While the Center has been able to make the other Rajya Sabha elections to be held through open ballot, the same has not been possible in the case of legislative council elections, where it has to rely on the resolution passed by the state.

There is this interesting anecdote in the legislative history of the US. The first US president George Washington was angry at the upper house, the Senate blocking his crucial money bills and wanted the architect of the US constitution, Thomas Jefferson to abolish the upper house.

The wise man that he was Jefferson while offering a cup of tea to a visibly upset Washington drew his attention to the cup and saucer in his hand. The wise man told him that the upper house acted like a saucer, which cooled things down with its wisdom and experience and corrected any mistakes if any and save the blushes for the lower house and give it a second chance to correct itself.

The jury is still out there on whether or not the states do indeed need a upper house. Given the current scenario that we as a nation are facing, where the political executive needs to pay more attention towards containing and giving relief to the people from the pandemic, such antics are clearly avoidable. Pressure tactics can wait for another day as no one had bargained it for.