Centre details 'warning' to Tamil Nadu Government

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, JULY 4. Charging that the Jayalalithaa Government in Tamil Nadu has ``designedly flouted the principles and conventions of responsible government,'' on June 30/July 1,2001, the Government of India tonight called upon the State Government to ensure that the State was being run ``strictly in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India.''

In a communication to the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, the Union Home Ministry has also demanded that the State Government ``should take suitable measures to show that it is not deliberately creating a situation of conflict with the Central Government, leading thereby to a constitutional crisis at a future date.''

In furtherance of these thematic demands, the Union Home Ministry has also ``called upon'' the State Government to ``assure the Government of India of its continuing commitment to the Constitution of India and to the rule of law as established by the Constitution.'' The Union Home Ministry details certain steps which the Jayalalitha Government must take ``to ensure that there is no recurrence of the unfortunate events of the past few days, under any circumstances.''

The steps demanded of the State Government have already been talked about and are specific to the events of the last few days. These include an insistence that the arrests would be made strictly as per the Supreme Court guidelines, in the Joginder Kumar and the D.K.Basu cases; that departmental actions would be taken against those officials who misbehaved with the Central Ministers; that the police notice to the SUN TV would be revoked, etc..

The Home Ministry communication puts down its version of the sequence of events on and after June 30, 2001. In particular, the communication harshly notes that the police action against the Union Ministers, Mr. Murasoli Maran and Mr. T.R. Balu tantamount to belittling ``the dignity and majesty of the Central Government.'' The communication also indicts the arrests of the large number of the DMK activists as aimed at ``suppressing political dissent'' and as curtailing the right of political adversaries of the ruling party in Tamil Nadu.

However, except noting that the Government of India would keep a ``close watch'' as to how these directives were being observed in letter and spirit, the Union Home Ministry communication stops short of threatening any penal action. The communication was finalised after day-long consultations among the officials of the Home and Law ministries; the advice of the Attorney-General, Mr. Soli Sorabjee, was also sought.

The communication was as per the decision of the Union Cabinet yesterday. The Union Cabinet had taken a serious view of the developments on June 30/July 1, and was keen that a ``message'' should go to the AIADMK regime that it did not have a license to play its politics of vengeance. The mild tone of the decision yesterday and of the communication tonight is being described as a strategy of ``graded response.''

The Centre's political and legal strategy is aimed at ``dribbling'' the ball of constitutional sanctions till the first six months of the AIADMK regime, when the Chief Minister's six month grace period would come to an end. Nothing should be done, according to the sober voices within the Union Cabinet, that would allow Ms. Jayalalithaa to regain the high moral ground.

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