Manipur & Goa Elections & After: The Lessons

The high voltage assembly elections to the 5 state assemblies of UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur ended with emphatic victories for the BJP in UP & Uttarakhand & for the Congress in Punjab; Goa & Manipur gave fractured verdicts but with the Congress being the single largest party in each case touted it as a 3:2 victory. They were ingloriously pipped to the post by the BJP which in all likelihood would laugh away with an eventual 4:1 victory.

Lesson 1 for the Congress: Learn agility & not take any victory for granted.

The Congress argues that the precedent set by R Venkataraman in 1991 – of inviting the single largest party to form the government - should be followed. Such a position is repudiated by others who aver application of the same principle, in 1996, by Shankar Dayal Sharma, led to the BJP being voted out in 13 days. A pre poll coalition with a majority or a post poll coalition that could bestow stability should be invited, they argue. Incidentally, the latter principle was followed in J&K (2002), Jharkhand (2005) & Delhi (2013).

Chastised by the swift movements, the Congress approached the honourable Supreme Court with a prayer to put on hold the appointment & swearing in of Manohar Parrikar as Chief Minister, Goa; they also requested for a composite floor test to be ordered only to be rebuked by the SC for not approaching the Governor first nor submitting an affidavit of support by the non- Congress legislators as proof of enjoying majority support. The Court balanced out its judgement by pre-poning the floor test to Thu the 16^th of Mar.

Lesson 2 for the Congress: Selective application of precedents shall not help; a legal battle without diligent field work would be futile.

Constitutional Expert Subhash Kashyap argues that the governor instead of invoking article 164 should have applied article 175 instead; the end result would have been just the same but it would have been constitutionally more prudent.

Lesson 1 for the BJP: Hasty grab of power without paying attention to constitutional niceties would invite ridicule.

The BJPs actions, perhaps, could pass the legal test but fail the moral one.  Prabhakar Timple who resigned from the Presidentship of the Goa Forwards Party in protest against his party deciding to support the BJP govt. despite the mandate being against it was scathing in his criticism calling it in an interview to rediff the “BJP Political Mafia raj”; he also feels that post grabbing power the BJP would attempt to lure Congress legislators & thereby break the party.  He also feels that the Dhavalikar brothers -- Sudin and Dipak of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party -- have always been with the party in power & they have been doing it since the last 20 years.

Lesson 2 for the BJP: Respect the peoples’ verdict

It could be argued that the BJP was in power in Goa & being reduced to 13 members in a 40 member house is a sign of voter non- confidence; a similar logic shall apply to the incumbent Congress which was reduced to 28 members in a 60 member house in Manipur. Perhaps, neither of the parties was keen to respect the mandates.  

Post the Bommai judgement in 1993, sanity, largely, was restored to polity with a decreased use of article 356 & a greater respect for mandates. The BJP’s action in Uttarakhand & Arunachal was a regression & the current actions would create further schisms in the polity.  It needs no soothsayer to predict that the Congress would reciprocate similarly if & when it rides back to power. Clearly, we are sowing the needs of a more rambunctious democracy & that surely is not music to ones ears.