Governors are not political wolves in sheep’s clothing. Are they agents of New Delhi, and Raj Bhavans, the post-retirement homes for the ruling party’s old warhorses? Many naysayers in the southern states may nod in the affirmative. Mind you, they are not decorated rabble-rousers deputed to disrupt the normal functioning of opposition-ruled states. They are, and will remain, the lynchpin of India’s federal system as per the constitution, even if there are cynics galore.
Last week, the AAP-led Delhi government’s decision to continue with the electricity subsidy (200 units free) stirred a fresh tussle with the Lieutenant Governor, VK Saxena. As the latter delayed signing the bill, the Delhi government’s power minister, Atishi, pulled a political stunt and announced that inflated bills (without subsidy) would be sent to all consumers as the L-G was loath to clear the file. There was indignation in the national capital. The L-G immediately clarified that the file had already been signed a day before.
Something similar happened in Tamil Nadu too. The governor’s stiff challenge to the long-pending anti-gambling bill came crashing down on Monday (April 10). Amid the government’s high-pitched criticism of Raj Bhavan and a bizarre resolution to censor the governor’s activities, along with the finance minister’s proposal to bring Raj Bhavan’s discretionary spending under scrutiny, the governor did a volte-face. Raj Bhavan sources claimed that the governor had in fact already signed the bill three days ago, on Friday (April 7). Just that nobody knew it until local TV channels broke the news on Monday afternoon.
Top government officials told TNIE that a messenger was sent to Raj Bhavan in the evening to collect the signed file. Mystery still shrouds over the timing of the signing, and of course, how the news landed on local TV channels much before it was passed on to the Assembly.
These days, chronology assumes a lot more importance. The anti-gambling bill was first adopted by the state assembly on October 19, last year, following a spate of suicides by compulsive gamers in Tamil Nadu. The bill had been drafted based on the recommendations of an expert committee headed by Justice K Chandru, a retired Madras High Court judge. The governor returned it after four months, declaring it anti-constitutional and against the judgments of courts.
He also said the Assembly lacked competence to enact such legislations. The Assembly readopted the bill on March 23 and sent it back to the governor for his assent. On April 6, the governor set off another political storm by declaring that if he withholds a bill adopted by the Assembly, it means the legislation is dead. Then, the next day, he signed the bill? Was Narendra Modi’s visit to Chennai on April 8 a trigger too?
Well, this is not the end. Over 20 bills adopted by the Assembly are still awaiting the governor’s assent. Probably, in his ‘court of justice’, the governor has already ordered capital punishment for these bills without an argument having been raised in favour of or against them.
History will remember former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, an RSS veteran and ex-national vice-president of the BJP, as someone who solemnised a BJP-NCP government in a midnight stunner with New Delhi lifting the President’s rule at 5.47am, in the wee hours of a Saturday (November 23, 2019) as Mumbai slept peacefully. Two years later, in June 2022, he presided over the collapse of a Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
“The governor should not enter into the area of intra-party feuds that precipitate the fall of a government,” is how the Supreme Court ripped him recently, calling the Maharashtra political crisis “a sad spectacle for democracy”.
Will TN’s tribulations end in 2024?
Anto T Joseph
Resident Editor, Tamil Nadu
anto@newindianexpress.com
@AntoJoseph