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The Presidential reference

THE CENTRE'S RESPONSE to the Election Commission's disinclination to hold early elections in Gujarat has been unnecessarily bristly and needlessly combative. Yes, the Union Government is entitled under Article 143 to seek the opinion of the Supreme Court on any important question of law which may arise or has arisen. And yes again, the Election Commission's decision on Gujarat does throw up some issues of serious constitutional import. But what is really germane here is a clutch of other questions. Why is the Centre so single-minded about rushing through with elections in Gujarat, a State which is still traumatised and in which (as the Commission has pointed out) it is impossible to conduct a free and fair election? Why is the Centre (or more precisely, the BJP leadership at the Centre) so piqued when, in effect, all that the Election Commission's decision means is that the poll is deferred by a couple of months? Why has it risked the impression that it is on a collision course when, by the Commission's own reckoning, Gujarat would be ready to go to the polls by the end of this year? Finally, what is the urgency about seeking a Presidential reference under Article 143? If the issue was only to clear up a possible misinterpretation of the Constitution by the Election Commission, why couldn't this have waited until later?

These questions, when read either singly or together, throw up answers which show up the BJP-led Government in a very poor light. They are answers which suggest that at the bottom of the BJP's eagerness for an early election in Gujarat lies not so much a concern for constitutional propriety but a cold and cynical calculation that its electoral rewards would be far greater if the election is held in the existing, inflamed and communally polarised, situation. The issue of whether the Election Commission's interpretation of the Constitutional provisions, particularly Articles 174 (1) and 324, are valid or otherwise is something for the Supreme Court to decide. The principal question to be settled would probably be the validity of the Commission's view that in extraordinary situations Article 174 (1) (which mandates that a Legislative Assembly meets every six months) should give way or yield to Article 324 (which vests the Commission with the total responsibility for the conduct of free and fair elections). But where was the need, in the course of announcing the Cabinet's decision to make a Presidential reference, to charge the Election Commission with transgressing its jurisdiction? Or, for that matter, to suggest that the Commission's decision has somehow put a question mark on democracy? A Presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution amounts to seeking a clarification on a point of fact or a point of law. It should not be accompanied with remarks, either direct or veiled, which serve to discredit a constitutional authority such as the Election Commission.

Such remarks only bolster the impression that the Presidential reference is not merely about seeking a constitutional clarification, but is the BJP's tetchy rejoinder for failing to persuade the Election Commission to declare an early election in Gujarat. Unfortunately, there were moments when such `persuasion' seemed to assume the shape of a coercive tactic, as it did for example when the party's general secretary, Arun Jaitley, bluntly urged the Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, to focus on holding the Gujarat poll and not on the (tardy) relief and rehabilitation measures in the communal riot-hit State. It is absolutely essential to recognise that the basic issue remains that of ensuring the voters in Gujarat, especially of the minority community, a sense of real security which will enable them to exercise their franchise freely. In that sense, no pressure should be unfairly placed on the Election Commission to reverse its opinion.

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