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March 4, 2005
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Honourable Prime Minister of India
7, Race Course Road
New Delhi
Honourable Dr. Manmohan Singh ji,
I am writing this letter to you with a deep sense of anguish and outrage about the latest developments in Jharkhand.
A gross, brazen and egregious assault on the Constitution and the edifice of our democratic system was mounted in Jharkhand on March 1 by none other than the highest Constitutional authority in the state, its Governor Shri Syed Sabti Razi. All, or at any rate many important facts in this matter, as also their sequence, are by now known to one and all. They do not bear repetition here. Suffice it to say that the action of the Governor to install a minority government in Ranchi, disregarding the incontrovertible claim of the BJP-JD(U) alliance to be given the first chance to form the government, has been roundly condemned by every shade of democratic opinion in our country. The illegality of his action was conclusively exposed when a majority of MLAs (41 in an Assembly of 81) supporting a BJP-JD(U) government presented themselves before Respected Rashtrapatiji yesterday. I notice that, belatedly at least, your party and some parties supporting your government have sought to distance themselves from the Governor's indefensible decision.
What has prompted me to write this letter is my sense of duty, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, to urge upon you the imperative of fixing accountability for what has happened. Accountability and responsibility are the very heartbeat of democratic governance. Like millions of my countrymen, I am astounded that no one in either the Central Government or in the leading constituent of the UPA is willing to take responsibility in the face of so major an onslaught on the Constitution.
I recall that when I phoned you on the afternoon of March 1 to convey my concern over the delay in the Governor giving Shri Arjun Munda, leader of the BJP-JD(U) combine, the first opportunity to form the government, you said that you would speak to your Home Minister in this regard. Later in the day, Shri Vajpayeeji also spoke to you to convey the same concern.
On the night of March 1, I spoke to Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil to convey the information I had received that the Governor had made up his mind to invite Shri Shibu Soren, leader of the JMM-Congress alliance, to form the government the following day. He did not give any specific reply, but kept on insisting that whatever the Governor would do, "he would do within the framework of the Constitution".
I take strong exception to the fact that, when the Opposition MPs repeatedly tried to raise the issue of Jharkhand developments in Parliament on March 2, neither you nor the Home Minister came to the House to allay our apprehensions and to assure the Nation that the Government would not let anything unconstitutional happen in Ranchi.
Dear Prime Minister, notwithstanding my personal regard for you, I am constrained to say that you and senior members of Parliament are avoiding your accountability to Parliament whenever a matter surfaces relating to contradictions in the UPA coalition - and such matters have surfaced frequently in the past nine months. As a result, the canon of collective responsibility of the council of ministers has become a casualty in your government.
In light of the sheer brazenness of the assault on democracy in Jharkhand, I demand that the government immediately institute a probe to determine who was responsible for it and take suitable action against the guilty. The following questions, in my view, are germane to the probe.
1) Two members of your Council of Ministers were camping in Ranchi throughout the sordid developments. As per media reports, they were in regular interaction with the Governor on the one side and with the state leaders and MLAs of the Congress, JMM, other parties and independent MLAs. I am willing to believe that these ministers were not briefing you about the developments. However, the people of this country have a right to know what they were doing in Ranchi and who in Delhi, if any, they were taking instructions from. Or, are we to believe that the two ministers were "free agents" who were acting in their own discretion - much the same way the Governor claimed he was doing?
2) When did Shri Shibu Soren, who was a minister in your Cabinet, tender his resignation? If he did so before being sworn in as the Chief Minister, which I presume he did, did you as the Prime Minister ask him why he was resigning? Did that give you any inkling about the happenings in Ranchi? With the information available to you at the time, did you satisfy yourself about the constitutionality of the installation of a JMM-Congress government?
3) Was the Home Ministry keeping track of what was going on in Ranchi? If yes, did the Home Minister convince himself that all that was "within the framework of the Constitution"? If he was not so convinced, did he exercise his duty by conveying his apprehensions to the Governor?
4) Shri Shibu Soren has issued advertisements in the newspapers of Jharkhand yesterday thanking the Congress President and Chairperson of the UPA for her support to him in forming the government. How does this square up with protestations on behalf of the Congress and UPA leadership that the Jharkhand Governor acted on his own? Is this not an attempt to make Governor Shri Razi a scapegoat in this sordid episode?
I await an early response from you, Honourable Prime Minister.
Regards, LK Advani
http://www.bjp.org/
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Note from Hindu Vivek Kendra:
In many ways it is pathetic that
a Leader of the Opposition of any democratic country has to write
a letter like this to the Prime Minister of his country. It
shows the absolutely low level that politics in India has been brought
down to. A further tragedy is that the alleged intellectuals
seem to be competing who can keep more silent on the issue.
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