Without giving any chance to prove its majority in the state assembly of Uttarakhand to CM Harish Rawat, the BJP government in centre, misused its power and article 356, imposed President’s Rule in the state. Neither ruling of speaker heard nor vote for majority on house floor has occurred yet. This is a clear cut example of ‘murder of democracy’ as termed by the Congress party. The CM should have been given a chance to prove his majority. The Speaker’s decision to pass the Appropriation Bill by voice vote even as he was aware that a majority of MLA’s were against it should ideally have been taken to the courts. The BJP governments in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have very thin majorities. If the Congress manages to snare unhappy BJP MLAs and triggers similar situations in those states then what Center will do? Do they react in same manner? Finally, Uttarakhand brought under President’s rule by the Centre on grounds of “breakdown of governance” in a controversial decision which comes in the wake of a political crisis triggered by a rebellion in the ruling Congress.
President Pranab Mukherjee signed the proclamation under Article 356 of the Constitution dismissing the Congress government headed by Harish Rawat and placing the Assembly under suspended animation on Sunday morning on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet. The Cabinet had held an emergency meeting on Saturday night presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had cut short a visit to Assam to return to the capital for the purpose. The Cabinet considered several reports received from Governor K.K. Paul, who had described the political situation as volatile and expressed apprehensions over possible pandemonium during the scheduled trial of strength in the State Assembly. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is believed to have briefed the President late Saturday night explaining the rationale for the Cabinet’s recommendation.
It also came amidst reports that Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal had disqualified nine rebel Congress MLAs that would have enabled Rawat to sail through in the trust vote. The Congress denounced the decision calling it a “murder of democracy” and said it showed that BJP did not believe in democracy. The political crisis in the state arose after the controversial circumstances in which the Appropriation Bill was declared passed in the Assembly by the Speaker with the BJP and the rebel Congress claiming that a division of votes pressed by them was not allowed. They alleged that the Bill was defeated in the voice vote by a majority of the members present but the Speaker did not test it in a proper division of votes.
The opposition claimed that it had a majority of 35 MLAs, including 9 rebels, in the House that day out of 67 MLAs present. The BJP said the 35 MLAs had written to the Speaker in advance that they would be voting against the bill but the Speaker had refused to take it into his consideration. Rawat said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hands were dipped in the “blood” of the “trampled” aspirations of the people. Alleging that central rule was a result of a “premeditated conspiracy” hatched by the Centre to dislodge a democratically elected Congress government in the state, BJP was “thirsty for his blood” right from the day he assumed office on February 01, 2014 and did not want his government to stabilise.
The four-year-old Congress government was slated to go for floor test in the state assembly on Monday. Rawat alleged that there was a money deal to lure the Congress rebels, adding “some people say it is Rs. 1,000 crore, some say Rs. 500 crore”. In the history of 68 years of Indian democracy, this is first such type of incident.
In February 2014, Rawat took the oath of office as 7th chief minister of Uttarakhand when Vijay Bahuguna resigned due to criticism of his handling of rehabilitation after June floods and landslides in 2013. In July 2014, he won a by-election from Dharchula assembly seat by over 19,000 votes. Harish Rawat is a five time elected as MP. As a member of 15th Lok Sabha, Rawat previously served as Union Minister of Water Resources in the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He also worked as Minister of State for Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Ministry of Labour and Employment.
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