Article 356: UF doublespeak - II - The Indian Express

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Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics. United
Front chief ministers spent Tuesday trashing Article 356
at the Inter-State Council meeting. At the United Front
Steering Committee meeting on Wednesday evening they were
pleading for the invocation of the discredited Article in
Uttar Pradesh.

The UF will find it hard to counter the charge that it
speaks in two voices on Article 356.

Its Common Minimum Programme had explicitly committed
itself to amending the provision to prevent its misuse.
Two-and-a-half months later the UF was defending its
decision to impose President's Rule in Gujarat.

Home Minister Indrajit Gupta had then said that the
Centre had taken the step with great "reluctance." But a
month later the "reluctance" gives way again to political
expediency: the UF Steering Committee decides that since
it cannot form a government, the Centre should resort to
the Article.

But the UF-constituents were speaking in their Other
Voice at the Inter-State Council meeting. The opinion of
chief ministers, representing the entire political spec-
trum, varied between amending the Article to scrapping it
outright.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.Chandrababu Naidu was
among the hardliners. "We have always been agitated about
the indiscriminate and frequent resort to this
provision," he said.

"The major refrain across the country has been that this
Article has been used to inhibit, rather than promote
democracy," he said

"We reiterate our long held ,position that Article 356
should be annulled altogether," he said.

Ironically, at the Steering Committee meeting the next
day, Naidu was among the key backers of the proposal to
reimpose President's Rule in U.P. The change in stance
was seen as a quid pro quo for a promise by Prime Min-
ister H.D.Deve Gowda to revive the experts' panel on the
Almatti dam dispute.

At Tuesday's meeting, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karun-
anidhi also called for the "total repeal" of the "notori-
ous" Article under which he has been dismissed twice as
Chief Minister. As if anticipating what his coalition
partners at the Centre were about to do just hours later,
he said: "It is our view that so long as that Article is
in the Constitution the temptation to misuse it cannot be
prevented."

Another UF-member, Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta,
spoke about removing the Deomocles' sword of President's
Rule hanging over the states ruled by parties different
from the one ruling at the Centre. "This is very crucial
for the proper functioning of a real federal set up."

Bhandari's moves, from, the day the results of the U.P.
elections started coming in, appeared in tune with Gow-
da's strategy to keep the BJP out of power.

"Stability is my prime concern in the formation of the
new government. I cannot commit myself to inviting the
leader of the single largest party to form the govern-
ment," he said. And Bhandari lived up to his word.

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