A new formula' to topple state govts?

The Congress government in Uttarakhand was brought down on Sunday with the imposition of President’s Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution in rather suspicious circumstances. The politics of recent months suggests that the Narendra Modi government is resorting to dismissing Congress-run state governments by imposing Central rule on grounds that appear surprising, and this is becoming something of a habit.

Barely a month has passed since the elected government in Arunachal Pradesh was pulled down, with the governor’s role drawing negative attention, and Central rule invoked and then ended in a matter of days to enable a new government, in which the BJP had the controlling hand, to take charge.

In contrast, the role of Uttarakhand governor K. K. Paul appeared not to be to the liking of the BJP, which criticised him for permitting chief minister Harish Rawat 10 days’ time for an Assembly floor test. In his reports to the Centre, the governor spoke of the “breakdown of governance”, but not “breakdown of the constitutional machinery” in the state, the standard template for recommending President’s Rule. Precedents suggest that a state is brought under Central governance and its Assembly brought to a state of “suspended animation” only when the governor cites this formulation.

It is shocking that the Modi government chose to bring Uttarakhand under Central rule just 24 hours before the CM was required to prove his majority on the floor of the Assembly. It is not clear if President Pranab Mukherjee had questioned the government on this aspect before giving his approval.

When the Janata Party came to power in 1977 with the end of the Emergency, the Morarji Desai government sent packing seven Congress state governments on the specious political ground that they had surrendered their legitimacy after the Congress lost the Lok Sabha election. Indira Gandhi returned the compliment when she returned to power as Prime Minister in 1980. Such prejudicial exercise of Central authority was making a mockery of the federal scheme envisaged in the Constitution.

In the past three decades since then, the use of Article 356 has been far more calibrated, judicious and infrequent. The question is whether the bad old days of the wanton exercise of power are returning. President’s Rule is unlikely to be endorsed by Parliament as the Modi government is short of numbers in the Rajya Sabha. So the Arunachal Pradesh “model” could be followed — to end Central rule once a pro-BJP government is installed in Dehradun, giving us a new genus of “Operation Topple”.