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At the helm, until voters decide

Mulayam Singh appears to have won, in the face of heavy odds, the final battle of the 14th Uttar Pradesh Assembly and, with it, the right to stay on as Chief Minister until an election — widely expected to be a watershed contest with major national political significance — decides who should rule the State for another term. By winning the confidence vote with a comfortable majority (223 in favour, inclusive of BJP and BSP rebels, in a 404-member house), the Samajwadi Party chief showed up the politically partisan demands for President's Rule in U.P. Between now and the Assembly contest, only political skulduggery can dislodge him from the Chief Minister's gaddi. Despite shrill noises from different political camps, including the State Congress, there has been nothing to suggest that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government would opt for political adventurism. Governor T.V. Rajeswar, for all his differences with Chief Minister Singh, has played fair within the bounds of the Constitution. Mr. Singh was under little more than moral pressure to prove his majority in the House, and none can fault him for clubbing the confidence vote with the motion of thanks to the Governor's Address. The opposition parties walked out of the House before the vote because they knew theirs was a lost cause.

The inept toppling games, in evidence over the past few weeks, betrayed a simple fact of democratic life: the ruling party starts out with an incumbency advantage, at the most obvious level, in any election. However, incumbency in the Indian political context turns out only rarely to be a winning advantage. It is now standard practice for opposition parties to register an apprehension that the ruling party will misuse the official machinery for partisan purposes — even though they know that the Election Commission of India, which has put in place an elaborate model code of conduct, will ensure a free and fair poll. In a close race of the kind Uttar Pradesh is likely to witness, a few seats can separate `winners' from `losers'. Every one knew that the demand for President's Rule in U.P. was over the top, constitutionally speaking. President's rule would not have guaranteed a free and fair poll because, for all practical purposes, it would have been the rule of the party in power at the Centre. If there is serious apprehension that the ruling party will misuse its control over the administration and its policy-making leverage to influence an election unfairly, the Election Commission has the experience, the wisdom, and the teeth to ensure a reasonably level playing field and the smooth conduct of the poll, especially in this era of electronic voting machines.

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