All eyes on the EC

As articles are cited and the finer points of constitutional law trotted out, one aspect emerges as clear as daylight. By dissolving the Gujarat assembly eight months before its term was to end, Narendra Modi has attempted to present the nation with a fait accompli — helped of course by his party colleagues in Delhi aggressively citing the paramountcy of Article 174(1) of the Constitution, which stipulates that the gap between two legislative sittings should not exceed six months.

The counter-argument to this is that this article does not justify an early election because it applies to two sessions of the same assembly, and not between two sessions of separate assemblies. But it is not so much the legal arguments and counter-arguments that should concern us here but Modi’s motivations.

Remember, Modi dissolved the House without even bothering to summon a session of the state assembly and gain its concurrence. In other words, he seems to desire nothing more than to steamroller an election through as quickly as possible in order to gain electoral dividends from the sectarian polarisation that his brand of riot politics has assiduously created.

The important question then is, should the nation allow a man who stands discredited for his government’s complicity in the worst riot in India’s history to get away with this audacious strategy? The answer is no. Not only will this affect the credibility of the election process it could ratchet up the levels of tension in the state.

What Gujarat needs most of all is not a hasty election but the healing touch. Despite all its protestations to the contrary, normalcy has not returned to Gujarat in sufficient measure as any number of news reports emanating out of the state testify to. What’s more — as this newspaper has argued time and again — normalcy is unlikely to return under Modi’s political dispensation.

Given this fact of life, given also that the Gujarat assembly today stands dissolved, it would appear that there is no way out apart from imposing President’s rule in Gujarat until such time as the state is ready for its tryst with the ballot box.