It is unfortunate that Arunachal Pradesh, a sensitive border state, should find itself in the throes of an artificial constitutional crisis. After seeking some clarification from the central government, President Pranab Mukherjee has approved the imposition of the President’s Rule; he had no other option.

The proclamation will have to be approved by both the houses of Parliament and the validity of President’s rule may be considered by the apex court, but it is difficult not to discern discredited political pattern behind the crisis that led to the current situation. The pattern involves dissidence within the ruling party, the opposition joining hands with the rebels, confusion over the likelihood of a floor test, and the Governor intervening in a partisan manner. It was in similar manner that Article 356 of the Constitution has been misused in the past. And, in such circumstances that the apex court declared in 1994 that the only place for determining whether a Chief Minister has lost or retained majority is the floor of the house.

Yet, the country is witnessing the sad spectacle of partisan politics overshadowing constitutional propriety. It is a poor commentary on the Narendra Modi government that, instead of finding ways to facilitate floor test, has imposed President’s Rule in the midst of an ongoing hearing before a five-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court. The Congress in the state is also to be blamed because, having obviously failed to address the dissidence in its camp against the Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, it appears to be avoiding a floor test as it has not sought interim orders to that effect from the court.

The crisis was precipitated when Governor Rajkhowa advanced the session scheduled for January 14, 2016 to December 16, 2015, and fixed a motion seeking the removal of the Speaker as the first item on the agenda. In the controversial sitting at makeshift venue, the Speaker was removed and a no-confidence motion adopted against the chief minister.

The Centre’s hasty move goes against the spirit of the Modi government’s promise of cooperative federalism and harks back to the Indira Gandhi days when displacing state governments by using Article 356 of the Constitution was common. The Centre, however, does have a point: Article 174(1) mandates that there cannot be more than a six-month gap between two assembly sessions.

The apex court must decide now whether the governor was within his constitutional rights to first call as assembly session on his own and then direct what motion to discuss. The Supreme Court’s Valluri Basvaiah Chowdhary judgment clearly states that as long as democratically elected government exists, the Governor can only act on its advice. Similarly, the 1994 Bommai judgment said that the question of whether a government still has a majority or not, can only be decided on floor of the house. On Article 356, the Centre must only act by the letter of the law but also seen to be acting with its spirit. It would have been prudent for Delhi to have waited for the apex court’s call before deciding on the President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh.

Justifying President’s rule, the Centre in its counter-affidavit cited recurrent insurgency, Chinese claim over Indian territory, and revolt by MLAS of the ruling party as factors for proclamation of emergency. Arunachal has always been a sensitive state but that does not mean the state government should be dismissed. If there is a revolt in the ruling party and MLAS were threatening to bring down the government, the right course would have been a test of the floor of the house. In the event of the CM losing his majority, the logical steps were inevitable. In that situation it would have looked justified, if the Governor had recommended Centre’s rule. (IPA Service)