Sanity restored

Redress may not be apparent at once in India8217;s lumbering democracy because of the pervasive corruption of the political class. But the Allahabad High Court ruling in the UP drama proves that the system of checks and balances does deliver. Up until this point, the drama in UP distressingly suggested that it was possible for sufficiently unabashed and ruthless individuals to behave as a law unto themselves. With the BJP8217;s fickle supporters taking the lead in destabilising the state government mid-election, the Governor actively playing along, the non-BJP parties nodding their approval, and the President apparently helpless without the Cabinet8217;s cooperation to restrain Romesh Bhandari, things looked bleak. And yet, just as the country was agonising once again about whether it would have to look to presidential activism to defuse the crisis, the High Court has made constitutional adventurism unnecessary. In ruling, with absolute correctness and propriety, that the Kalyan Singh ministry should be reinstated andthat it is up to the Governor to order a trial of strength in the Assembly, the court has changed farce to process in one stroke. This still leaves open the possibility of the Kalyan Singh ministry falling. The redeeming difference is that, unsavoury as the incident and the BJP8217;s allies are, democratic procedure has prevailed over opportunism and a contempt for decency and legality.

Legally, there were no two ways to interpret what had happened in UP. Any other ruling would have been as objectionable as the Governor8217;s conduct itself in dismissing a Government which had not been proved to have lost the support of the House. But another matter of importance remains and it must not be neglected just because the immediate crisis has been partially resolved by the court8217;s sagacity. It is that Governor Romesh Bhandari cannot be allowed to get away yet again with gross impropriety, manifest politicking and generally doing his best to bring dishonour to the gubernatorial office. This is at least the third time,apart from other misdemeanours, that Bhandari has behaved with utter contempt for the Constitution and for what his own job required him to do. He first failed to invite the BJP, as the single largest party in the state after the Assembly elections, to form the government. If anyone still had doubts about his political affiliations 8212; and Governors are supposed at the very least to be bashful about theirs 8212; he had to be restrained by presidential intervention from dismissing the government. And now he sets out with embarrassing haste to oblige Jagdambika Pal.

The UP drama is not over. Calling a vote of confidence, setting the date for the parties to prove their majority: these crucial questions still depend on the Governor. Romesh Bhandari clearly is not the man for the moment. The Cabinet should take note that he ignored the President8217;s advice in rashly installing Pal as Chief Minister and recommend his recall, even dismissal, to the President. If it does not want the disgraceful expression of glee at theUP developments by the likes of Harkishen Singh Surjeet to boomerang, it should exercise its responsibility and not push Rashtrapati Bhavan into an activism it does not want.