THE GREAT INDIAN CIRCUS
There could be little doubt that the UP Governor Romesh Bhandari nurtured his own personal agenda. It would be naive to think that the present imbroglio that has rendered yet another government defunct in that state took the incumbent of the Raj Bhavan too by surprise. On the contrary, the post-haste speed with which a new CM has been installed points to the possibility that the plot was indeed hatched inside that palace of intrigues and it did have the blessings of the very excellent Excellency.
The timing of the coup is very sinister. The governor who is still, constitutionally the head of state does have a responsibility to maintain order and peace, and though he lacks the authority to enforce it directly, the least that could be expected of him was to not disturb it. That the eminent governor should seek to perpetrate this outrage just on the eve of a crucial election, when the whole nation is already dogged by several imponderables and is awaiting the outcome with dread as if it were a hangman’s noose, reveals a sadistic streak besides rank political vendetta.
Romesh Bhandari has been seething and biding his time ever since his designs were thwarted by the wily Kalyan Singh when the latter engineered a split in almost all opposition parties and secured a majority for his government. The subsequent trial of strength in the Assembly which resulted in it turning into a wrestling ring and the Jumbo ministry are all now, history, though a very unsavoury one. The governor did try his best to get the ministry dismissed then itself but his efforts came to a naught owing to President K.R.Narayanan rejecting the cabinet recommendation and the cabinet on its part failing to muster up the courage to reiterate its recommendation. The President’s unprecedented decision was widely appreciated and was seen as the right snub to a Governor who was clearly overstepping the limits of constitutional propriety.
This time around, the Governor has been a lot wiser and a lot more cunning. He has now achieved at least temporarily, what he wanted to do five months back and in the process has thrown all legislative and constitutional norms to the winds. The breakneck speed with which the whole plot has been enacted indicates that it had been well rehearsed and secrecy was deemed the essence of the entire operation. There could not be a greater insult to the President of India, who was not even informed of the developments by his own representative in the State. Obviously, Romesh Bhandari did not want the President to play the villain a second time. Yet the slight cannot go unpunished and we are sure there would be decisive debate on the role of the Governors vis-a-vis the Centre as well as the State governments so that at least in future such habitual constitutional trespassers are not allowed to occupy Raj Bhavans.
Kalyan Singh, no doubt, must have learned to his dismay that defection is a knife that can cut both ways. His government has gone out the same way it came in. Overloaded vessels are always doomed to sink. A person who crosses the floor once is more likely to do so again as habits die hard and for such men it is always the case of the other side appearing greener. Modern day defectors do not sell consciences, they only lease them out so that they could be retrieved any time.
A trial of strength on the floor of the assembly would certainly have been the right thing to do but the Governor apparently thought otherwise and preferred instead the relatively safer confines of the Raj Bhavan to test the ‘strength’ of the contenders. Kalyan Singh can definitely hope to score a few points on that count, but it is doubtful if he could sustain a campaign of righteous indignation for long, having himself been an offender of morals and principles in his bid for power. And that is perhaps the Governor’s gamble. At the end of all this personal war of attrition and acrimony it is once again democracy which has become the unfortunate victim. But its custodians do not seem to care.
The BJP is unlikely to take all this lying down, It is too early and in a way too late to gauge the impact of the UP developments on the party’s poll prospects, both at the state and national level. The party’s stability plank may witness some rattling, nor can it raise its voice against conscience-sellers with conviction. But there can be no doubt that the UP experiences, both in October and now, can be expected to have its impact on the party’s post-poll strategies, in case it falls short of a majority.
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