A second defeat on Bihar will be hard to take but the Central government can try to claim the moral high ground on the issue. In revoking President’s rule the Centre has played by the book and not given in to unwise counsel on going to court, allowing the proclamation to lapse or letting a motion be defeated in the Rajya Sabha. Once last-ditch efforts to persuade the Congress to back the government’s motion in the Upper House had failed, realism demanded a quick end to the imbroglio. Revoking the proclamation is constitutionally correct and, politically, the least painful path. Any other course of action would have prolonged the constitutional and financial crisis in Bihar for no visible purpose other than to save the Centre further embarrassment. The BJP can also argue that its efforts to bring about better governance in Bihar were frustrated by the short-sightedness of the main opposition party. However, from here on, the BJP and the Samata party will have to look to political rather than constitutional means of remedying the situation.It is not exactly back to square one in the state. The Congress has been put on the defensive and will not have an easy time explaining itself to its own workers or to constituencies it is wooing like the Dalits. While it is possible to argue that there is an important distinction between a moral and a constitutional right to rule, for the victims of atrocities that will sound like nothing more than hair-splitting.Laloo will now assume his hands have been strengthened. He will be inclined to think his popularity remains high and allows him to rule the roost as before, making up with rhetoric what he has failed to deliver to the people.He will also interpret the Congress’s political compulsions as a clear indication of its need to get on his bandwagon if it wants to get anywhere in Bihar. If these assumptions are not challenged by the major parties and by his allies on the Left, Bihar will continue to deteriorate.Excerpts from an IE editorial of March 9, 1999
