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India’s constitutional lab is boiling after all

Less than 50 days after NDTV announced a resounding victory for the Congress in Goa and the ‘rejection of communalism’ by the people of Goa, my assessment right after the polls has turned prophetic.

I referred to Goa as India’s constitutional lab simply because it has provided us with landmark judgments on various aspects of India’s constitution and especially its Xth Schedule. The latest assembly has been no exception.

Within a short span of time, the Bombay High Court at Goa is already hearing 5 disqualification petitions and one petition challenging the appointment of parliamentary secretaries in violation of the limit to the size of ministries.

My views have been further vindicated by the fact that the Congress-NCP government has plunged into a minority yesterday after a congress MLA resigned from the house and a 2 member coalition partner withdrew support along with another independent.

But the Congress at the Centre is not going to take this lying down and as reported by the Indian Express is already involved in ’strategic thinking’.

No prizes for guessing what the strategy will be for we have examples galore. Here are the options that the UPA will surely examine :

  1. The Razi method : Get the seasoned S.C. Jamir not to invite Parrikar to prove his majority until such time that some of those switching sides can be swayed back into the ’secular’ fold. This off course after not requesting Kamat to prove his majority until such time that he can garner it or give Kamat a couple of months to prove it.
  2. The Bhuta Singh method : Get the seasoned S.C. Jamir  to send a report to the Centre in Bhuta style that morality is taking a beating in Goa for the BJP is indulging in horse trading which is unknown to the ’secular’ parties. The report could possibly append reports from www.ndtv.com as well.

The third possibility is that the UPA surrenders after a qua timet court order like in the Jharkhand case, and then anyway dissolve the assembly around October end with mid-term polls in time with the polls in Gujarat and possible mid-term polls in Karnataka.

I think that the Congress is bound to loose irrespective of which of its tried and tested options it exercises for if there are mid-term polls anytime soon and if the BJP and MGP stay together enough to have a pre-poll alliance, the Congress will be in for a severe beating.

As the action shifts to the Raj Bhavan at Dona Paula, lawyers could start preparing drafts on either side yet again. As for the Raj Bhavan, it can expect ‘resident guests’ like Priayranjan Das Munshi for at least a week from now who usually visit during such crisis to enlighten the Governor to uphold the constitution in true UPA style !

10 Responses

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possible mid-term polls in Karnataka.

I like your line of thought :)

1 Sriram July 26, 2007 10:33 am

Sriram,

I said that because I hear that the ‘Mayawati non-reciprocity doctrine’ is going to be employed by the JD(S) there :)

2 Ninad Laud July 26, 2007 2:00 pm

Ninad - I can see the passion in you when you write on Goa :) they say fate is not without a sense of irony Digamber Kamath must be ruing that. Parikkar must demonstrate statesmanship and end this vicious cycle of toppling governments now that he is even, pending of course taking over the reins.

3 Yossarin July 26, 2007 3:13 pm

wow this is a great post
and uve posted almost all the probabilities so nicely that it is like time travel into the future of the murky world of politics!

4 prax July 26, 2007 8:13 pm

Yossarin

Agree. According to game theory, the best strategy for repeated games is “tit for tat, with no memory”

5 Nitin July 27, 2007 2:20 am

Expectedly, the Congress got the assembly adjourned till Monday, giving them the weekend to get the dissidents back.

Yossarin, I completely agree that Mr. Parrikar needs to end this (I had wrongly thought that he had ended it 3 years back). In fact, when he took over in a similar manner about 6 years back, he ensured that all the Congress dissidents joined the BJP thus bringing them within the clutches of the 10th Schedule. But that wasn’t enough (since the 93rd amendment wasn’t in place) and the moment he saw we were in for more games, he got the assembly dissolved with the help of the NDA at the Center and even won in court when the same was challenged.

Those fresh elections got him a good mandate, but considering it’s Goa, only good enough for 3 years with Mr. Kamat pulling the rug.

This time too I am sure he is not really looking to run this government for too long (not that the UPA will allow it) but mainly to get enough time to prepare the party and a possible coalition with the MGP to get a clear mandate, which to me seems a realistic bet.

It feels really good that life has come a full circle for Digambar so quickly, but that’s happened to almost every CM in Goa :)

6 Ninad July 27, 2007 7:09 am

[...] dismissing state governments by applying article 356 at the drop of a hat and most recently resorting Gubernatorial games. The dubious practice of Speakers exercising wide discretion in recognizing splits and [...]

7 Blogger News Network » July 30, 2007 11:02 pm

[...] not so in our Constitutional Lab, for in this lab one can experiment the many ways in which the Constitution can be allowed to [...]

8 » Jamir’s many sins | Offstumped January 18, 2008 12:23 pm

[...] not so in our Constitutional Lab, for in this lab one can experiment the many ways in which the Constitution can be allowed to [...]

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