The Hindu : National : Maharashtra Governor not to insist on trust vote

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004

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National

Maharashtra Governor not to insist on trust vote

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, OCT. 19. The Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, today flew down from New Delhi to personally hand over his resignation to the Governor, Mohammed Fazal. Mr. Fazal accepted the resignation and requested Mr. Shinde to continue in office until an alternative government was in place.

Mr. Shinde clarified that although his resignation was a constitutional formality that could have been done by faxing a letter to the Governor, he felt that it was his duty to hand it over personally. Later, he flew back to New Delhi to join the discussions between the National Congress Party and the Congress on who should be the next Chief Minister.

Claim not disputed

Mr. Fazal told The Hindu that as no other party had disputed the claim of the Congress-NCP alliance to constitute the next Government, he planned not to insist on a vote of confidence in the House once the new government was sworn in. He said he was confident that this would happen in the next two or three days although he denied that Mr. Shinde had given him any assurance on this count. "It is not appropriate for me to set a deadline," he said, "but I feel in two or three days a new government will be in place."

In response to the Governor's request to the political parties to send him by October 18 a list of the parties as well as the Independents with whom they have pre-poll or post-poll alliances, the Congress and the NCP sent separate letters to him. The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president, Prabha Rau, confirmed that the Congress had an alliance with the NCP, the Republican Party of India (Gawai), the Republican Party of India (Athavale), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Lal Nishan Party and two Independents. R.R. Patil of the NCP sent an almost identical letter confirming the NCP's alliance with the Congress and the other parties as well as the two Independents. Both parties confirmed that the arrangement would continue even after the elections.

Asked why he felt the need to send in such a letter to the political parties about their alliances, Mr. Fazal said: "I had sent the letter with a view to enforcing some political discipline. To some extent, I have succeeded. The political parties have surmised what was in my mind and both the largest parties have written to me and confirmed their alliance arrangements."

The Governor said he was happy with the way the elections were held and had complimented the Chief Electoral Officer and his colleagues. "We should take great pride in this. I feel our polity in Maharashtra is getting more and more civilised," he said. "No party has grumbled about the fairness of the election."

Mr. Fazal said that perhaps a law should be considered to restrict the number of Independents. "Persons belonging to recognised political parties should contest. But with Independents, the process has become too individualised. Something should be done to curb individual ambition," he said. Even the process of recognition had to be further strengthened so that political parties that sometimes represented just one person were not recognised.

New Assembly constituted

Earlier in the day, the State's Chief Electoral Officer, U.P.S. Madan, handed over to the Governor a notification with the list of the 288 members elected to the Legislative Assembly. With this formality, the 11th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly has been duly constituted. Mr. Madan confirmed that the new Assembly would need to meet no later than six months from when the last Assembly met.

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