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The riotous scenes witnessed in the Gujarat Assembly on
Wednesday during the vote of confidence in the Suresh
Mehta Government were a blot on Indian democracy. For
the second time in 15 days, the country was witness to
the unwholesome conduct of legislators who have been
elected by the people to uphold cherished institutions.
The conduct of MLAs and those entrusted with the respon-
sibility of ensuring legislative decorum was not only
disgraceful, but actually suggested that India's evolu-
tion to responsible self-government is woefully incom-
plete. It is one thing, however, to be exasperated over
the conduct of legislators, but to conclude from the
debris in the Assembly that the Constitutional machinery
in the State has broken down is rather far-fetched. The
Constitution is neither a barometer of public indigna-
tion, nor a football to be kicked around according to
political convenience. It is the repository of norms and
conventions which govern political life. And those norms
and conventions - plus the landmark Supreme Court judg-
ment in the S. R. Bommai case - make it abundantly clear
that the test of a government's majority must be on the
floor of the legislature.
By that cold logic, Suresh Mehta demonstrated on Wednes-
day that he does indeed command the support of 92 MLAs in
a House of 179. The circumstances in which the vote was
taken may leave a lot to be desired, but there can be no
doubting the fact that the BJP clearly won the numbers
game. Under the circumstances, the decision of the Union
Cabinet to recommend the imposition of President's rule
was not only irregular, but politically motivated. It is
impossible to escape the conclusion that Governor Krishna
Pal Singh's recommendation and the Union Cabinet's action
was prompted by a desire to save the members of the
breakaway Maha Gujarat Janata Party from certain disqual-
ification under the anti-defection law. The respite
offered by President's rule gives rebel leader Shanker-
sinh Vaghela another chance to fish in the troubled
waters of the Gujarat BJP and, maybe, recoup his losses.
>From the United Front Government's point of view this may
be desirable, not least because there is an election to
be fought in Uttar Pradesh, but the Constitution cannot
be misused for partisan ends and certainly not to further
the goals of a determined minority. Having expressed its
abhorrence in the Common Minimum Programme for the previ-
ous Congress Government's misuse of Article 356, the UF
has now demonstrated that the more things change, the
more they remain the same.
Despite its public protestations, the BJP should actually
be delighted that the Centre's peremptory imposition of
President's rule has allowed it to emerge from the Assem-
bly fiasco in the robes of a martyr. Governance having
more or less come to a standstill for the past two
months, the BJP can now afford to cover up its political
ineptitude and direct its fire at the Centre. It may
succeed. But the ignominious collapse of the administra-
tion which was billed to serve as a showcase government
should prompt its detractors to ask the question: why do
BJP Governments fail to live out their natural life? In
the context of the Assembly election in UP, it is an
embarrassing and damaging query.
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