Author: Jaya Jaitly
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 22, 2007
The Congress is trying to elevate party president
Sonia Gandhi to the level of the unofficial head of the state
Today, we are left with the position of the
chairperson of the UPA, which is not designated through a rule or resolution
of Parliament. Nor is there any provision in the Constitution that provides
for a post of chairperson of a post-election alliance when the person is not
the Prime Minister.
People may well say that in the NDA Government
from 1998 to 2004, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was also designated
as the chairperson of the NDA. However, this was an informal designation that
did not carry its own recognition or sanctity, nor was it detached from that
of his role as Prime Minister.
The NDA was only an informal political platform
with a label to bring allies together and was not a legal entity or an officially
designated body with a separate status of its own. It can disintegrate anytime
and it did not even have an office or letterhead of its own. The chairperson
of that body had only as much power as did Mr Vajpayee as the Prime Minister.
The UPA is no different. The post of chairperson cannot be parallel to or
higher than that of the Prime Minister, nor can it be treated as a part of
the Government.
In contrast to the earlier dispensation, the
Prime Minister has allocated to his party president the position of chairperson
of the UPA without precedent or legal sanction, nor any sense of propriety
or fair play. It has been taken for granted that this accords the Congress
president an official position in the Government itself as well as automatic
sanction to preside over functions that are conducted entirely from public
funds. In effect, there is no doubt in the public mind that this is visibly
projected as the highest post in the Government.
Many sectors of Government are thus using
funds spent from the public exchequer to host the Congress party and its president,
which, apart from being improper, is to the detriment of other parties within
the UPA coalition. Here are some examples:
* Public advertisements issued by the Congress
State Governments in all national newspapers announcing anything are accompanied
by photographs of the Prime Minister, Chief Minister or other Ministers but
are nearly always alongside, preceded or engulfed by pictures of the UPA chairperson.
* The Satyagraha Conference held recently
in Delhi was announced as a Congress party event. However, it was entirely
organised and facilitated by the Ministry of External Affairs at an official
venue and the host of the programme was the Congress president.
* The National Games at Guwahati was fully
funded and organised by the State and the Union Government, but it was inaugurated
by the Congress president.
* The inauguration of the bus service from
Jammu & Kashmir to Pakistan was a country-to-country event coordinated
by the Governments of both countries. However, prominence was given to the
Congress president who flagged it off.
* The Central Social Welfare Board, an autonomous
fully owned body of the Union Government, recently launched special schemes
for women of the North-East. The Congress president inaugurated the schemes
at a Government function in the presence of a number of NGOs that would presumably
be among the recipients.
* The Surajkund Crafts Mela is an annual event,
which has been inaugurated by Chief Ministers, Union Ministers or Governors
for the past 20 years. It is wholly funded and organised by Haryana and the
Union Government. In 2007, for the first time, the head of the Congress party
inaugurated the event.
The Chief Minister of Haryana followed the
inauguration with advertisements in all newspapers the next day thanking the
"president of the AICC" for inaugurating the fair. While it is not
known whether these advertisements were from party or Government funds, gratitude
was expressed publicly to the Congress president and not UPA chairperson.
Dividing lines between these designations have already been blurred and one
can easily be substituted by the other.
These and many other occasions have been used
by the Congress to elevate its president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, to the level of
the highest Government functionary although there is no official, legal or
parliamentary sanction for the same. It may be pertinent to ask the Prime
Minister whether the same situation would prevail if there had not been a
member of the dynasty heading the Congress.
Renunciations may be good for the heartstrings,
but rewards for these cannot come from Government purse strings to exalt individuals
and benefit parties. Such a precedent can enable the Shiv Sena, if it heads
a Central coalition, to make Mr Bal Thackeray its chairperson, the Left parties
leading a coalition can make Mr Biman Bose its chairperson or the Samajwadi
Party can appoint Mr Amitabh Bachchan as its chairperson. Why not?
Wrong precedents guarantee aberrations and
constitutional complications in the future. If the position of the Prime Minister
is undermined, and public funds used to promote the interests of one party
by the creation and misuse of super political posts, we should not be surprised
at what tomorrow could bring.
(The author is a politician and former president
of JD-U)
