Mumbai:
Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, state Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Nawab Mallik and Congress leader of opposition in legislative assembly Vijay Wadettiwar have all in unison accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of indulging in horse-trading and back-door governance through imposition of Presidents Rule. Raut has hinted that the BJP might repeat its Karnataka pattern by splitting its rival faction, a repeat of “Operation Lotus”. While the prospects of horse-trading cannot be ruled out, the chances of imposition of Presidents Rule look bleak at the moment.
Mallik on the other hand has warned that the NCP shall raise an agitation if any attempts were made by the BJP to split its MLAs. Wadettiwar too accused the BJP of offering bribes to lure its MLAs. While former Congress Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan remarked that the BJP is now paying for its attempts to split the opposition before the elections forcing some to join the BJP.
Given the current arithmetic and numbers in the new 14th Assembly, at the face of it, it is difficult for both the BJP and the Sena-NCP combine to muster up the numbers to reach the majority mark of 145. The BJP along with its 105 MLAs, rebels and other smaller parties can muster up 119, still 26 short of the majority mark. The Sena with its 56 MLAs, plus support of some Independent MLAs and 54 MLAs of NCP can rustle up 117 MLAs. The Sena will require 28 more MLAs to support its trust vote.
Although a faction of the Congress is in favor of supporting the Sena, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is not overtly keen on it as the Congress leadership is apprehensive of its impact on Jharkhand and New Delhi assembly polls. Even, if the Congress decides to abstain from voting, just as the NCP had done in 2014, enabling the BJP to sail through the trust vote then.
If the 44 MLAs of the Congress decides to abstain during the trust vote of Sena-NCP, the majority mark comes down to 123. In such a scenario, the BJP with the support of 119 MLAs will still need 4 more votes to reach the revised majority mark. Whereas, the Sena-NCP combine will need 6 more votes to reach the revised majority mark.
As for the Karnataka pattern bogey, it must be noted here BJPs Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa managed to sail through the trust vote, thanks to the then Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar disqualifying 17 Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs from the house. The Operation Lotus case is still pending before the Supreme Court.
In such a scenario, the BJP will have to be extremely cautious so as to not to attract any negative criticism of horse-trading, or trying to gain backdoor entry into the administration by imposition of Presidents Rule. The BJP might as well fancy its chances in the trust vote of the Sena-NCP alliance, where a reduced majority mark is well within its grasp.
Another most talked about disqualifications is that of 18 AIADMK MLAs being disqualified in Tamil Nadu after the death of former chief minister J Jayalalitha in 2016. The 18 AIADMK MLAs were disqualified on the grounds of their owing the allegiance to rebel leader TTV Dinakaran.
The more recent defection of 10 of the 15 Congress MLAs in Goa in July 2019 is fresh on the minds of everyone. Here the entire lot of 10 Congress rebels joined the BJP to give stability to the Dr Pramod Sawant led BJP government in Goa. At the same time another notable defection was that of 10 Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) MLAs joining the BJP.
In June 2019, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has successfully wooed 12 of the 15 Congress MLAs to its side to shore up its numbers in the legislative assembly. In November 2017, Telgu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu had engineered defection of 23 odd YSRCP to his party fold. While in 1984, the Congress had engineered mass scale defections from the TDP led by then chief minister late N T Rama Rao and toppled his government in the process.
Moreover, the BJP is also weary of imposition of the Presidents Rule after the Supreme Court verdict in the S R Bommai case in 1994. A section of the BJP leadership is not in favor of Presidents Rule, as the Bommai judgment allows the SC to intervene and strike down the emergency proclamation if it finds it to be done with malafide intentions.
However, notwithstanding the role of the Governor and the imposition of the Presidents Rule, in 2002, the then Governor in Jammu and Kashmir had invited the PDP-Congress combine to form the government, despite the fact that the Omar Abdullah led National Conference was the single largest party.
Ever since the Article 356 that paves the way for imposition of Presidents Rule, it was used 84 times by the Congress since 1950-51, Janata Party 16 times, BJP 7 times and National Front Alliance government 6 times. The frequency of its use by the Center came down drastically after 1994, as the BJP has used its provisions only three times after it came to power at the Center in 2014. Since 1950-51, Article 356 has been used in 26 state’s, most in Uttar Pradesh 10 times, Bihar 9, Kerala, Manipur, Odisha and Punjab 8 times.
Another topic of hot debate at the moment is the survival of minority governments in the country. The 13 day government of Prime Minister late A B Vajpayee collapsed in 1996 as the government did not even opt for the trust vote. Another short-lived government was that of late prime minister Indira Gandhi that lasted barely for a year between 1969 to 1970. The late prime minister had then sought for the dissolution of the Lok Sabha. The other notable minority governments that barely lasted included the one led by late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao (1991), V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar governments in 1989 and 1991, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral government’s in 1996 and 1998.
