Gujarat Governer justifies dissolution

GANDHINAGAR, Dec 29: Gujarat Governor Krishna Pal Singh, in a status report sent on Sunday to the president, the prime minister, and the union home minister, sought to justify his decision to dissolve the State Assembly on recommendation of the Dilip Parikh ministry. What might have prompted the justification is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Atal Behari Vajpayee’s charge that Singh had acted in a “partisan and arbitrary” manner, without consulting President K R Narayanan and Prime Minister I K Gujral. In the status report, a copy of which was available to The Indian Express, the governor has listed several reasons for the dissolution of the Assembly, saying he had taken this decision only after taking into account the views of leaders of all major political parties and seeking legal advice on the Constitutional aspects involved.

The report says his decision was based on the following points:

Article 163 of the Constitution allows a governor to act according to advice given by the Council of Ministers. It does not specify whether the ministers should be from a party enjoying majority support.

There is a school of thought that if the council of ministers does not enjoy majority support, a governor is not morally bound to take their advice. But in this case, when the recommendation came the council enjoyed the support of the Congress.

The committee of governors appointed in 1970 had suggested that a governor should accept the advice of the cabinet unless it was clear that the chief minister was trying to avoid a no-confidence motion by recommending dissolution.

The split in the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP), and the new group’s (RJP-A) decision to form government with BJP support, was not entertained by him as the groups would not be able to muster the 91 MLAs required for majority.

There was fluidity in the RJP, as three MLAs who said they were with Atmaram Patel’s RJP (A) had gone back to the RJP.

Political instability has taken its toll in Gujarat, for in the last two years and nine months the state has seen four governments come and go. In view of this dismal record, the interests of the people will not be served by entertaining claims of various groups, even if there was a requisite majority.

The report points out that a succession of unstable governments goes against the interests of people because efficiency of the administration suffers.