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The remedy has to be institutional, not political

Harish Khare

Rather than invoking Article 356 against the Uttar Pradesh Government, the UPA leadership should put its faith in institutional arrangements to ensure that the Samajwadi Party does not use its office to manipulate the electoral process.

BEYOND THE immediate calculations of political expediency that inform the debate over whether Uttar Pradesh ought to be brought under President's Rule, the larger question is the inviolability of the federal principle. Power is not the monopoly of one group or party; power must be shared among legitimate regional, ideological, and linguistic contenders. In our constitutional scheme, the Centre is enjoined to act only as the custodian of the sanctity of the Union not as a meddlesome overlord.

The Congress leaders, in New Delhi and Lucknow, are understandably anxious to see the back of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh. This itch has intensified in proportion to the party's inability to get its organisational act together in the State. The Congress leaders want to use the Centre's discretionary powers to achieve what they are unable to get through normal political groundwork in Lucknow.

The Congress leadership is frustrated because key supporters such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are reluctant to become partners in its political mischief. In this self-created state of frustration, the Congress leadership is unable to realise that those who oppose the use of Article 356 against the Samajwadi Party Government do so not because they necessarily endorse Mr. Mulayam Singh's political priorities and methods but because the federal principles enjoin restraint and circumspection in the use of constitutional authority.

In fact, the ongoing Uttar Pradesh episode provides a good illustrative inset of the new lessons parties and leaders have to learn in exercising power in an increasingly fragmented polity. Leaders and parties who insist on behaving arrogantly or waywardly end up losing the game.

The Samajwadi Party, too, has lost the support of almost all the secular voices in the country because of its unique experiment in crony capitalism; a party that pretended to be "samajwadi" in its orientation and ideological commitments became a grossly over-advertised platform for the coming together of film stars and entrepreneurs. On top of this, the party leaders took pleasure in needlessly needling UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

The Samajwadi Party leaders' actions simply antagonised all those parties, including the CPI(M), who would otherwise be sympathetic. No one really knows whether Mr. Mulayam Singh has realised the true nature of his political isolation and its causes.

Excesses not a licence

But Mr. Mulayam Singh's excesses do not provide the Congress a licence to tinker with constitutional provisions. The Congress invocation of "political morality" as the ground for ouster of the Mulayam Singh Government makes little sense. Political morality cannot be defined according to the requirements of the day. After all, along with all other secular parties, the Congress, too, was keen to put an end to the BSP-BJP government in Uttar Pradesh as a desirable first step towards the unseating of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre; and, when the situation did arise in 2003, the Congress had no hesitation in extending support to Mr. Mulayam Singh to form the government. The BJP was the bigger enemy, and everybody was happy to be of help in causing discomfort to it.

The Congress and everyone else knew precisely the legal infirmities incurred by those "defectors" who helped Mr. Mulayam Singh cobble together a majority in the legislature; the Congress' belated realisation of constitutional improprieties does not wash.

Even purely from the common sense perspective, the Congress leaders should be the first to concede that a Mulayam Singh out of power would probably be less amenable to restraint.

Mr. Mulayam Singh should be allowed to prove his majority in the legislature, while the rest of the polity can ask that the February 26 vote be so taken as to leave no doubt about the nature of majority. The Chief Minister, in fact, should invite the Governor to send a representative to watch the February 26 proceedings.

Above all, what is driving the Congress leaders in New Delhi and Lucknow in demanding Mr. Mulayam Singh's ouster is an apprehension (shared by other political rivals) that he has already so compromised the State administrative machinery that no free and fair poll can take place as long as he remains in office. This kind of apprehension has been voiced against many State Governments of different political orientations. This is a political judgment and cannot be the sole basis for invoking a constitutional brahmastra.

Still, the Congress leadership would be perfectly entitled to mobilising all of Mr. Mulayam Singh's political rivals to reinforce institutional arrangements to ensure a level playing field for all when Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls. Rather than practising a constitutional sleight of hand, the UPA leadership must use its influence and authority at the Centre to strengthen the Election Commission's hands to neutralise Mr. Mulayam Singh's presumed (unfair) advantages. Instead of giving in to impulses of political vendetta, the UPA leadership should set a healthy tone by relying on the Election Commission to ensure a free and fair poll in the State, and hope Mr. Mulayam Singh's political and administrative sins catch up with him.

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