Sunita Aron - Ballots and Breakups: The Games Politicians Play

BALLOTS
AND
BREAKUPS

The Games Politicians Play

SUNITA ARON

BLOOMSBURY INDIA

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First published in India 2019

This edition published 2019

Copyright Sunita Aron, 2019

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To
the Indian voters,
whos political acumen has
failed the best poll pundits
in the country

CONTENTS

THE DANCE OF DEMOCRACY

I t was a multistarrer thriller full of suspense, action and melodrama, which the entire country witnessed in May 2018a fierce battle of ballots that ended with a fractured verdict.

The Karnataka drama unfolded while I was writing my book on the coalition drama and dharma in a hung house. Soon thereafter, in mid-June, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped a bombshell in Kashmir, pulling the plug on the government without even taking Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti into their confidence. She came to know from the news channels about her fall from the coveted chair after it had been seized from her by her three-year-old partner.

According to the power-sharing agreement, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart Mufi Mohammad Sayeed had signed and sealed in 2015, the chief minister and 13 ministers were inducted from the PDP, while the deputy chief minister and 11 ministers were chosen from the BJP.They visibly, if not actually, governed the state together for three years, notwithdtanding verbal skirmishes.

The reason cited by the BJP for its decision to pull out of the government did not sound tenable to many.The party leadership said, Restoring peace in Kashmir and encouraging fast development in J&K were the objectives with which we joined with the PDP. But terrorism, violence and radicalism have risen and the fundamental rights of citizens, including right to life and free speech, are in danger. It is untenable for the BJP to continue in alliance with the PDP and hence we are withdrawing.

Not many were convinced.

They were not as shocked as they had been when the ideologically incompatible partners had come together in March 2015 to form a coalition government. Even then the consensus was clear: the alliance is doomed to fail.

But there are many pertinent questions that the BJP needs to answer: Is it the government that has let down the people or just the chief minister? Is it proper to pin all the blame of misgovernance on the chief minister, or should it be shared by both the partners? If the alliance was doomed from the very beginning, then why was it sealed at all in the first place? Both the parties knew they had divergent views on several contentious issues that they willingly shelved while wording the agenda for alliance, which, however had remained on paper. As of now, the blame game continues with the BJP making a futile bid to break the PDP. Now the paradise on earth burns and the people suffer!

Karnataka and Kashmir together reveal the disturbing story about the formation and fall of coalition governments in India, especially when ideologies are set aside to grab power. More often than not, there is no love lost between the partners.The blame game starts instantly, so does the clandestine moves to break each other.

The coalition trend started at the state level in 1967 and a decade later at the Centre. Rarely has a government completed its five-year term as demanding and domineering partners played truant. The question is, how can any tottering government serve the people when its own survival is in danger? The imposition of the Presidents Rule since the 1950s has crossed a century.

Significantly, the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) has had the maximum number of Presidents Rule (10 times since Independence) while Punjab has had maximum days (3,000 under Presidents Rule).

The issue of concern is both the formation of fragile coalition governments and the trials and tribulations that go into their constitution and collapse.

Lets go back to the Karnataka thriller that reveals the games which parties play in a hung house.The suspense continues as the flick has reached only an intermission as the final drama is yet to unfold.The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress government with a wafer thin majority is too fragile to survive BJP President Amit Shahs strategy for the finale.

Here are the details: The BJP, with 104 seats, was eight short of the requisite halfway mark (elections were held for 222 seats). The combined strength of the Congress, JD(S) and its ally, the BSP stood at 78 + 37 + 1 = 116. But they did not have a friend in the Raj Bhawan.

There was exasperation in both the camps as they were so close to the chair, yet so far.

Chaos prevailed as the governor, after consulting legal expertsa divided community with each basing their arguments on Supreme Court judgements, the Constitution and conventionsinvited the BJP to form the government.The governor would later on earn the title of the Villain of the Drama.

Ordinarily speaking, the constitutional positions of the president, the governor and the speaker do not function on their personal whims and fancies because they are bound to follow the holy bookthe Constitution.

Here are some unforgettable episodes from history and the BJPs past.

President Shankar Dayal Sharma was criticised for inviting the single largest party, the BJP, to form the government under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1996.The government fell after 13 days.

A year later, UP Governor Romesh Bhandari did not invite the single largest party (BJP) to form the government. Kalyan Singh fumed and fretted, and organised demonstrations outside Raj Bhawan, but could not stop the imposition of Presidents Rule.

Bhandari had then said that the stability of the government was the bottom line for inviting any political party to form the government. Citing the six-year-long political instability in the state, Bhandari had said that it was his constitutional responsibility to determine which party or alliance could provide a stable government to the state.