This time, Romesh Bhandari has crossed all bounds of decency in his meddling with the affairs of government. He has dismissed a government w...
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This time, Romesh Bhandari has crossed all bounds of decency in his meddling with the affairs of government. He has dismissed a government without allowing it to prove its majority, and he has apparently done it against the wishes of the President. He has also set an unhealthy precedent by swearing in a new state government less than 12 hours before the second round of polling began. Opinion may be divided on which way the dismissal of Kalyan Singh could influence the voters in the state, but influence them it will. Bhandari was under no immediate compulsion to swear in a new government late at night. He should have gone through the due process of a vote of confidence on Kalyan Singh 8212; though his government was clearly in a minority, it deserved that courtesy 8212; and he could easily have deferred the vote till after the results of the Lok Sabha poll were declared.
But then, Kalyan Singh should have resigned the moment he lost majority support in the House, instead of asking for a grace period of 15 dayswhich would, needless to say, have been used to put in some intensive horse-trading. In fact, it would not be specious to argue that had Kalyan Singh asked for the dissolution of the House immediately after proving his majority last year, Uttar Pradesh would have been in very different circumstances today. The BJP, too, would have been in a better position to demand justice. As things stand, the very Hindu Vajpayee is having to resort to the very Gandhian stratagem of a fast unto death to press his suit. Having sought questionable company, Kalyan Singh cannot object to being upstaged by it, and by his own methods at that. Jagdambika Pal now intends to expand his ministry very soon, in an echo of the precedent set by Kalyan Singh himself. The outbound chief minister can scarcely complain.
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But, setting aside the sins of Kalyan Singh, the fact remains that it is time something was done to restrain Bhandari. He may be within his rights in rejecting the urgings of the President and using his own judgment, but agovernor who places greater reliance on his common sense and his ethical faculty would be far more useful. The fact is that Bhandari has emerged as a more consistent foe of democracy than any criminal politician. He is proving to be incorrigible, for the tremendous flak he took during the last crisis in Uttar Pradesh seems to have had no effect at all. This time round, he has challenged the authority of the President and the Supreme Court, which had ruled in the Bommai case that parties on their way out had to be given the opportunity to test their majority on the floor of the House. The Loktantrik Congress did not even have to parade its MLAs before Bhandari to get his assent. Seasoned governor that he is, he just knew they were in the right. Democracy stresses the preeminence of process over persons but in Bhandari8217;s UP, it appears to be the other way round. It is time to clean up the situation in the state and, without appearing to be partisan in the current controversy, an excellent first step would bethe replacement of Romesh Bhandari by someone with a better grasp of civics.
