It looks as if another political storm may be brewing in Andhra Pradesh. Some unidentified state Congress leaders have been reported as having said that the Union government would not allow the state assembly to be dissolved in case the chief minister, Mr. NT Rama Rao, advises the governor to do so. They are also said to be taking the stand that the assembly must run its full term of five years and that, in any event, this was not the proper time for a fresh election in view of the widespread drought in Andhra Pradesh, We could have dismissed these statements as nothing more than expressions of nervousness on the part of some Congress leaders in Hyderabad if there were no other indications to show that some individuals in New Delhi too may be thinking in those very terms. But there are some such indications. For one thing, the Union industries minister, Mr. Vijayabhaskara Reddy, has told our correspondent in Hyderabad that it would not be right to dissolve the assembly and go in for a fresh poll at this stage when it was necessary to concentrate attention on drought relief work. For another, The Hindu has reported that the Centre is taking the view that despite a chief minister’s continuing majority in the house the Governor is not obliged to accept his advice for dissolving the assembly without exploring the possibility of an alternative government being formed. So it is possible that the Union government might prevent Mr. Shankar Dayal Sharma from acceding to Mr. Rama Rao’s proposal for dissolving the state legislature if the chief minister does in fact decide to seek a fresh mandate.
The Congress leadership clearly feels that its prospect in the forthcoming poll to the Lok Sabha, none too bright already in view of recent developments in Andhra Pradesh, would be further jeopardized if Mr. Rama Rao decided to hold elections to the state assembly at the same time. This is a reasonable calculation. It is, therefore, just possible that it is waging an indirect war of nerves on the chief minister in order to stop him from seeking dissolution of the assembly. If it succeeds and Mr. Rama Rao decides that discretion is the better part of valour, the feared storm would not hit Andhra Pradesh. But what if it does not? The Union home minister, Mr. PV Narasimha Rao, enunciated a dangerous doctrine in the wake of the dismissal of Mr. Rama Rao as chief minister last August when he said that a governor had the “unfettered right” to decide whether or not a chief minister continued to command a majority and that the governor’s subjective satisfaction was decisive in such matters. This “doctrine” is still in place though Mr. Rama Rao has been back in office for over a month. On top of it an even more dangerous “doctrine” is being enunciated now. It is being said that in case an inconvenient chief minister seeks dissolution of the assembly, especially at a time inconvenient to the ruling party at the Centre, the Governor would be free to try and convert the chief minister’s majority into a minority. That is what “exploring the possibilities of an alternative government” means in plain words. Some governors have practiced this doctrine even without the “provocation” of the concerned chief ministers seeking fresh mandates. Mr. Ram Lal tried precisely to convert Mr. Rama Rao’s majority into a minority. But this is perhaps the first time that such a dangerous “doctrine” is being formulated and pronounced even if rather discreetly still. This should serve as a warning for Mrs. Gandhi. She should not say next time that she had been taken by surprise by the actions of some of those who speak in her name.
A democracy, it should hardly be necessary to say, survives as much as on the strength of healthy conventions and norms as on that of the popular insistence on adherence to the Constitution. Mr. Narasimha Rao and other Congress leaders ignored this truth when they interpreted the Constitution literally to make it out that it placed no restriction on the discretion of Governors in certain matters. They also disregarded the widespread view that as far as possible the majority of a chief minister or lack of it should be tested on the floor of the house. Some of them are now wanting to discard what has been an established convention in this country. Which is that the advice of a chief minister still commanding a majority in the legislature is binding on the Governor. They must be restrained before they perpetrate another assault on the spirit of the Constitution and strengthen the distrust of the Centre among opposition parties.