As was only to be expected, Mr. Devi Lai has not resigned as the chief minister of Haryana in obedience to the Janata parliamentary board’s directive to him last Tuesday. He has not challenged the board’s competence to issue the directive. But he has ignored it and gone ahead mobilizing support for himself in the state Janata legislature party. Whatever is left of his Cabinet after the resignations of the former Jana Sanghis and other dissidents has asked the governor to convene a meeting of the legislature on July 26. This is as clear an indication as one can expect of the chief minister’s determination to stick it out till then. He is aware that he is in a minority in the party. For only 31 out of 76 Janata legislators attended the meeting that he held at his residence on Thursday morning. But he apparently feels that he has nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain if he can hold on to office till he is defeated on the floor of the House. For one thing, he may be feeling that some kind of cease-fire may take place in the bitter factional struggle at the national level as a result of the efforts of some individuals and that this may avert the downfall of his government. For another, he may be hoping to win over some more legislators to his side as he was able to do not long ago. In any case, he can take some more populist decisions like the ones he took on Thursday and thereby increase to some extent his and his group’s popularity among the people, especially the peasant castes.
It is difficult to believe that the Janata parliamentary board did not anticipate these moves on the part of Mr. Devi Lal when it ordered him to step down last Tuesday. It must have. But that cannot detract from the fact that his moves have placed it in a somewhat embarrassing position. It will be odd for it to go ahead with a meeting of the state legislature party on Friday as scheduled to elect a new leader when Mr. Devi Lal has not resigned. That a majority of the legislators are on its side is pertinent but not decisive in this connection. Indeed, it will be placing the Governor in a difficult position if it goes ahead with the proposed meeting. For, he cannot call upon the new leader to form the government so long as the present one is in office. He can doubtless recommend the dismissal of Mr. Devi Lal and his remaining colleagues on the ground that it was no longer possible for them to function in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. But that will involve a departure from the fairly well accepted general principle that the government’s majority or lack of it should be tested only on the floor of the legislature. The governor would doubtless have been within his rights in the present circumstances to recommend his dismissal if the chief minister was not willing to face the vidhan sabha and was reluctant to summon it. But in this case Mr. Devi Lal himself has asked for a meeting of the legislature at an early date. The Karnataka Governor ignored this principle only last January when he recommended the dismissal of the Urs ministry which, too, was ready to face the vidhan sabha, But that was a wrong decision and so would be one calling for the ouster of the Devi Lal government so long as it has not been defeated to the floor of the vidhan sabha.