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 “IS James Michael Lyngdoh from Italy? Or is he helping the Congress
President Sonia Gandhi because he is also a Christian?” Such are the
questions that the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has used in his
public rally at Bodeli town of Vadodara district. He is hammering these
questions at his rallies at villages and small towns only to drive home
the point that the Chief Election Commissioner is biased against the
Hindu majority because he is biased in favour of the minorities only
because he is a Christian. There is an open suggestion in his public
address that J. M. Lyngdoh was helping the Congress President as both
belong to the same religion. Never before has any chief minister
launched such a vitriolic campaign to denigrate the Constitutional body
that the Election Commission is. He continues to spew venom against the
Chief Election Commissioner personally only because Lyngdoh has thwarted
his plans of early elections so that he could return to power riding on
the high waves of the emotional upsurge among a large section of the
majority community. Or, at least, he believes that there is an upsurge
among the majority communities due to the Godhra incident and its
aftermath in which nearly 2,000 lives were lost and property worth
crores of rupees was burnt or destroyed.
The surprise is that neither Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee nor
Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani has pulled up the Chief
Minister for the public denigration of the Election Commission. (At the
time of going to press, the Prime Minister has reportedly told the Chief
Minister and the Chief Election Commissioner to end their war of words).
The Union Government has disagreed with the assessment of the situation
given by the three members of the Election Commission after they visited
Gujarat and talked to people and also to the officers of the State
Administration. The Union Government holds the view that the Chief
Election Commissioner has raised some questionable points in his verdict
on the plea of the Gujarat Chief Minister for an early election. There
is a difference of opinion between the Union Government and the Election
Commission. The Union Government, especially the Home Ministry,
believes, based on the report from the State Government, that normalcy
has returned to Gujarat, the State that had seen continued and an
extreme form of violence for three months. The Election Commission has
obviously come to the conclusion that absence of violence does not mean
that normalcy prevails in the State. Normalcy would be only when every
one is mentally and physically in a position to reach the polling booth
to cast his or her vote. However, the broken homes, the shattered
confidence and the lack of morale in a large section of society does not
indicate that normalcy has returned to the State. This is the difference
in the perception of normalcy between the two sides, the State
Government and the Election Commission.
Hence, the Election Commission ruled out the possibility of holding
elections till November end. The Election Commission also held that the
Commission was empowered to determine the time and conduct of the
elections under Article 324 of the Constitution and it would prevail
upon Article 174 (1) that sets the time limit between the two sessions
of the State Assembly.
There are disputes about Article 174(1) and its interpretation. BJP
experts argue that the said Article provides that six months shall not
intervene between the last sitting of the Legislative Assembly in one
session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next
session. Since the Assembly had last met on April 3, it was essential
that the elections be completed so that the Assembly could be
constituted before October 3 so that it could meet for the next session.
However other constitutional experts point out that this time limit
pertained to one assembly and not between two assemblies. The Gujarat
Assembly has been dissolved; hence it did not attract the provisions of
this Article. They also cite umpteen examples such as Punjab and Assam
as well as Kashmir that have undergone long spells of Central Rule
without their assemblies holding the session within the six month
period. The last example was of Uttar Pradesh where the State election
was completed in October 1993; however the Assembly session was not
called till March 1994 because no party was in a position to form the
government for nearly six months. The gap between the two assembly
sessions was much longer than six months and yet it was not seen as a
constitutional crisis. However, the BJP sees a constitutional crisis in
this case only because its plans for early elections have been thwarted
by the verdict of the Election Commission.
Earlier, the then Chief Election Commissioner, T. N. Seshan had refused
to hold Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir because he had come to
the conclusion that the law-and-order situation was not conducive to
holding free and fair elections in the State. Though the general opinion
was that the Chief Election Commission had usurped the powers and
authority vested in the State Government to decide the timing of the
elections and also declare whether or not the law and order situation
was conducive to hold the elections, the BJP, then in the opposition,
had supported his stand. Today the BJP is questioning the right of the
Election Commission to decide whether or not normalcy was restored or
not. The Deputy Prime Minister said in so many words that it was the
function of the government to decide whether or not the law and order
situation was conducive to hold the Assembly elections. It was not the
function of the Election Commission to take a decision on this issue.
The differences in the perception made the Union Cabinet take the
drastic measure of seeking an opinion from the Supreme Court.
Hence, the Union Cabinet decided to refer the matter seeking an opinion
from the Supreme Court on the three points referred to by the President.
The three points raised are: Does Article 174 of the Constitution yield
to Article 324, namely, whether the time frame provided in Article 174
would be subject to the decision of the Election Commission under
Article 324 to hold the Assembly elections? Can the Election Commission
frame a schedule for elections to an assembly on the premise that any
infraction of the mandate under Article 174 would be remedied by
resorting to Article 356 by the President? Is the Election Commission
bound by the mandate of Article 174 that there should not be a gap of
more than six months between two sessions of the State Assembly?
The Election Commission’s suggestion to bring the State under Central
Rule through use of Article 356 since the governance of the State cannot
be carried out in accordance with the provisions of Article 356 of the
Constitution, has triggered off a controversy making the verdict
unpalatable to the National Democratic Alliance because it would open a
hornets’ nest. Why such a suggestion was implied is not clear because
the Gujarat State Assembly was dissolved on July 19, four days after the
Presidential poll. According to the Constitution, even though Narendra
Modi and his ministers ceased to be members of the State Assembly, they
continue to hold office for six months without being the members of the
Assembly. Thus Modi and company could continue in office till December
19, 2002. This would have been possible in normal times. Narendra Modi
could not continue to hold office. That has rattled every one in the
Bharatiya Janata Party even though the claims of normalcy were shattered
when municipal workers discovered two skeletons from sewage in Ahmedabad
this week. It also nails the claim of the State Government that every
body was accounted for and those missing might have gone away from the
State to live with their relatives elsewhere. It only proves that the
State administration has been misleading the people on the issue of the
total human toll in the prolonged carnage.
But Narendra Modi and his colleagues are so obsessed with winning the
elections that they have launched a vitriolic tirade personally against
the Chief Election Commissioner by painting him as a communal person.
Even the worst enemies of Lyngdoh would not accuse him of such communal
and partisan bias. His entire career has been spotless. But for Modi it
was necessary to keep the fires burning in the hearts of his vote bank
because the prolonged period for holding the elections would change the
electoral scene. The BJP wanted the election on its own terms and on its
issue of a communal divide between Hindus and Muslims. It would have
been possible to reap the benefits of such a divide if the elections
were held immediately. But the State elections after November does not
suit the BJP for the ground realities would be different. Then the
collapse of the State economy would be the main factor during the
elections. The after effects of the drought in the State also would be
prominently noticed and felt. To keep the Hindu and the Muslim divide
alive till the elections, the BJP has decided to undertake a Gaurav
Yatra in the State. It is to remind the Hindus that they have aptly
replied to the burning of a bogey of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on
February 27. The proposal is fraught with the danger of sparking off yet
another spell of communal violence as the scars inflicted by the
communal violence of the last five months have yet not healed. In fact,
blood is still flowing. The discovery of two skeletons is evidence of
such a fact. The communal violence at Dhoraji in Rajkot district is also
evidence that the communal upsurge has not died down. In the Gaurav Rath
Yatra, provocative slogans are bound to be raised as they were during
the Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra of Lal Krishna Advani in 1990. It
resulted in building up communal tension. If more tension is built up,
it would only go to prove that J. M. Lyngdoh was right in assessing that
normalcy has not returned to Gujarat.
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