Building resistance

A governor8217;s scruple, his sense of constitutional propriety, are the sole constraint, it seems, on a brute display of numbers by the political class in Maharashtra. Consider the incriminating timeline: in an April 27 order in 2005, the Bombay High Court ordered the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation to demolish 855 illegal buildings; on December 27, 2005, soon after the demolitions began, the cabinet drafted a proposal to protect the illegal constructions till January 1, 2005, and sought to push this through in the form of a hurried ordinance. The reason for the hurry: the matter is scheduled to come up again in court today. The reason for the rare political unanimity that backed the rash political adventurism to defy the court: leaders cutting across party lines own illegal properties in Ulhasnagar, as a report in this paper has pointed out. Things were going according to plan. Except for Governor S.M. Krishna.

There is a certain irony, of course, in that the progress of the controversial file should be stalled by S.M. Krishna8217;s office. The governor8217;s office is not exactly known for its heroism in India. In recent times, governors in this country have become more famous for their political partisanship and other abdications. For the last such instance, just rewind to the murky circumstances surrounding the imposition of president8217;s rule in Bihar and Governor Buta Singh8217;s role in it. But S.M. Krishna8217;s insistence on going by the book may not be so unexpected, after all. He had tried to insert a similar respect for due process when Maharashtra8217;s politicians of all hues bonded last: on the retrograde dance bar ordinance. At that time, a law in the assembly eventually rode roughshod over his qualms.

The onus is now on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. With the Delhi politicians mulling a similar ordinance to stall the MCD8217;s demolition drive, someone needs to apply the restraining hand on brazen legislators. In the nation8217;s capital, the responsibility must be shouldered by the one man who is seen to have the moral authority to remind the people8217;s representatives of their duty to serve the public good, not their vested interests.