Federalism Under Threat ?

West Bengal chief minister 

Mamata Bannerjee in the chief 

ministers’ conclave

It used to be the pet theme of Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. But after he assumed power in the Centre, his style of functioning appears totally in defiance of the federal structure of the national polity. Not one meeting of the NDC has taken place in his 16 months’ rule, which is a forum where states can raise their issues. The Planning Commission is already finished which used to take care of financial needs of the states. There are accusations that Centre is running parallel governments through governors and lieutenant governors in the non-NDA states. All this does not augur well for the country and democracy. The first attempt to organise a ‘Conclave of Chief Ministers on Cooperative Federalism & Centre-State Relations’ did not succeed as only two chief ministers turned up from among the five who had evinced interest, but this does not mean the issue is going to die down any time soon. It would continue to acquire fresh energy and momentum until the Centre amends its ways, AAP leaders say.

By Bodhi Shri

Non-NDA governments in states have one common complaint against the Centre since the new government under Narendra Modi has came into existence that there is unwarranted interference of the Centre in the functioning of state governments. So much so that parallel governments are being run through the governors and lieutenant governors, state chief ministers say. 

The worst victim of this attitude has been the Delhi government of Aam Aadmi Party, which badly mauled the BJP in the assembly elections early this year despite the vigorous campaigning undertaken by prime minister Narendra Modi which was also hugely energised by the RSS. The BJP could win only 3 seats out of 70 in Delhi. 

      Decency and public ethics require that BJP leaders should have become humble after the defeat, but the opposite happened and all kinds of dirty tricks are being played to harass the Delhi government of Arvind Kejriwal. Any neutral observer would say that the Centre is creating hurdles in the functioning of the Delhi government on one pretext or the other out of vindictiveness. All limits were crossed when the lieutenant governor wrote to officers of Delhi government last week of September not to follow any orders from the chief minister, which they thought were in contravention of Centre’s directive. Who can say that this is not an open encouragement to rebel against an elected government? 

      It is not just the Delhi government which is at the receiving end from such an attitude of the Centre. The experience of several state governments is similar, though the degree of the interference might be varying. The Samajwadi Party last month protested the interference of UP governor Ram Naik who has earned the reputation of making comments, observations and statements which do not match his constitutional high position. Seeing the level of undue interference (he wrote 175 letters to the chief minister in a year raising numerous issues) crossing the limits, party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav requested prime minister Modi to either restrain him or remove him. The situation is so bad that a section within the ruling party in UP demanded to launch a ‘halla-bol’ against him.  

      The behaviour of other governors is also reported to be not much different. 

This is yet another matter that these chief ministers did not turn up in the ‘Chief Ministers Conclave on Cooperative Federalism and Centre-State Relations’ organised by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Five chief ministers had given their consent to attend the conclave—West Bengal, Bihar, Mizoram, Tripura and Puducherry. Uttarakhand chief minister had responded to the invitation, but chose to stay away, ostensibly due to strong rivalry between the Congress and AAP in Delhi. 

Delhi chief minister Arvind

Kejriwal and Tripura CM Manik 

Sarkar after the chief ministers’ 

conclave on ‘Cooperative 

Federalism and Centre-State 

Relations’ in Delhi

      The Conclave also seen as Arvind Kejriwal’s efforts to emerge as a national leader, as a matter of fact flopped since only two chief ministers turned up and others excused themselves from attending it citing one reason or the other. And out of the two chief ministers, Manik Sarkar of Tripura was counselled by the CPM’s central leadership not to share the dais with Mamata Bannerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal.  Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar did not come as he was involved in the ‘do or die’ kind of electoral battle in his state. Kumar’s letter, however, scathingly accused the Centre of crushing the federal structure by taking unilateral decisions on a number of issues like cutting Centre’s share in several important centre-sponsored schemes without consulting the chief ministers. Nitish reminded, ‘Before elections, BJP used to talk about federal structure but now the behaviour of the Centre is against cooperative federalism’. The Bihar chief minister proposed detailed deliberations among the states after the Bihar polls.

      Mizoram CM Lal Thanhawla of the Congress could not come as the assembly session was to begin, but he sent his views in a letter.  

      Mamata Banerjee stole the who roared like a lioness in the conclave making a convincing case by citing examples how the federal structure of the country was under threat. She accused that the Centre was using CBI, ED and Income Tax Department to bulldoze state governments. She proved her point by citing the case of CBI raids at Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhandra Singh’s residence in connection with a disproportionate assets case. She recounted how the Modi government was breaching the boundary of political ethics and propriety and ‘running down’ constitutional provisions. She told that she was shocked to know that the Bengal governor had written a letter asking for central forces for civic elections in the state. She accused the governor of summoning police chief and other officers to the Raj Bhavan though law and order is state’s prerogative. 

      Kejriwal spoke about how since the Delhi assembly was constituted in 1992 no LG had interfered with chief minister’s decisions. But in his case 30 decisions have been changed. By doing so Centre was not only insulting the democracy but also the judiciary. If I am wrong there are courts to take care, why this interference, he asked. He gave an example how Delhi Police under the Centre chose to remain mute spectator when ESMA was to be implemented during the DTC strike causing innense hardship to millions of commuters on a wroking day.   

      Some political observers feel the attempt to bring together chief ministers of various non-BJP parties at one platform may one day convert into a political alternative to take on the BJP. But this interpretation was vehemently denied by Arvind Kejriwal.

(Note: The article was first published in the Lokayat magazine: October, 2015)