Cooperative Federalism : A Mirage of ‘Team India’?

Modi’s grand idea of ‘cooperative federalism’ and ‘Team India’ was given a go-by by several non-BJP Chief Ministers including 9 from Congress-ruled states.

The Modi regime has rediscovered a phrase called ‘cooperative federalism’ trying to give a new spin to distribution of powers between the federal government in the centre and the states. That J P Rajkhowa is a BJP appointee and his role possibly putting weight behind Congress rebels in the on-going dissidence activity in Arunachal Pradesh has given an impression that the constitutional position was being used to embarrass the Congress.
The BJP that rules the centre is not the ruling party in several states. This obviously gives urgency to the question for a proper redistribution of power between the centre and the states. Rajkhowa’s decision to order convening of the state assembly in a school premises as the state assembly Speaker was singing different tune – that ostensibly would have helped Congress rebels – has accentuated the debate that Governor’s office has been ‘abused’ in the past and is again being abused. Rajkhowa in fact joins the illustrious (sic) league of past Governors in north-eastern states who had their share of controversy. Romesh Bhandari had made news in Tripura while the likes of Oudh Narayan Shrivastava and MM Thomas had their share of the cake in Manipur and Nagaland respectively.
There have been many others in various states across the country and the controversy has been going on for years. The core of the issue is the centre-state relationship – a vital feature in the running of the democracy.
Even lately Governors and state chief ministers kept making news.

The constitution has assigned specific roles and jurisdictions at different levels – for all stake holders – the central government, the states and even the courts and the Supreme Court. The famous Keshavanand Bharati judgement of the Supreme Court had held that Parliament has the powers to enact new laws and amend the Constitution but it cannot destroy the basic structure of the constitution. The proponents of centre-states relationship maintain that, however, number of times, the centre has in last 6 decades acted “arbitrarily” summarily dismissed state governments and dissolved the state assemblies – albeit for pure political motives of the ruling dispensation in New Delhi.
Highhandedness—
A Congress style
In 1992-93, the PV Narasimha Rao did the exemplary case of highhandedness when post December 6 “demolition”, as many as four BJP governments—Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh were dismissed.
In 2005 during Manmohan Singh’s regime, the Goa Chief Minister Manohor Parrikar (BJP) was dismissed by Governor S C Jamir “within minutes” the Chief Minister won the trial of strength in the floor of the House. Incidentally in 1990, Jamir, then Nagaland Chief Minister, was himself dismissed by the Governor M M Thomas after 12 ruling Congress legislators defected from the Congress camp.
But talking about Arunachal Pradesh and the latest round of controversy, one finds a sense in the words of BJP state unit president Tai Tagak who says, “The recent political drama in Arunachal Pradesh presented the people of the state in poor light”.  Defection is a menace in the politics of north-eastern states. If such unscrupulous defections of the law makers continue, can the people of these states project the good image of the region?
But was the Governor right in his decision? His order has been put on stay by the Guwahati High Court. Predictably the episode was used as yet another ammunition by the Congress in Rajya Sabha to stall the proceedings of the just concluded winter session of Parliament. But the bigger controversy on the role and powers of the Governors remain. This is an age old syndrome since 1960s and in most cases – the Congress party has been found misusing the office.
Erosion of Position
In the words of eminent jurist, Soli Sorabjee, who had spoken in different context earlier – “It will be no exaggeration to say that no institution or constitutional office in the country has suffered greater erosion than the office of the Governor”.
The text book makes it clear that a Governor of a state is a constitutional representative and not subject to the dictates of the centre. But as he/she holds the office till the pleasure of the President of Bharat– the central government irrespective of party affiliations has a role to play. This brings us to the crux of the issue – on what really needs to be done to change or rather correct the system. The Trinamool Congress raised the federalism bogey against the Modi government in the Lok Sabha during the debate on the Constitution on 27 November, 2015.
“Undoubtedly, the centre has a upper hand in Concurrent List. But do not try to be the ‘Big Brother’. State government is not the junior to the centre,” Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee said participating in the debate. The Mamata Banerjee has its own issues vis-à-vis the central government and the state Governor Kesharinath Tripathi. Besides confrontation with the Governor on use of central forces during the recent civic body polls and usual one upmaship against the BJP government in the centre, Mamata-led Trinamool also has issues vide the proceeds of account of cess and surcharge. It wants these revenues to be shared with the states.
But the onus on bringing about these desired improvements cannot be one way traffic.  On May 10, 2015 sharing dais with mercurial regional leader Mamata Banerjee, Modi had said, “Without Team India, Hindustan cannot progress’.
However, Trinamool Congress, JD (U) and AAP have been playing politics openly. While states keep complaining against the centre, their own role vis-à-vis the Modi regime mostly has been purely political. In July 2015 therefore the hyped cordial bonding on centre-state relations as promised by PM Modi had hit a roadblock.
Modi’s grand idea of ‘cooperative federalism’ and ‘Team India’ was given a go-by by several non-BJP Chief Ministers including 9 from Congress-ruled states.
“It’s not a case of ambushing the very idea of Team India …..what has happened is a sort of triumph of negativitism,” one senior BJP leader later said. For his part, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh blamed Congress for the sabotage and remarked, “The best efforts to seek cooperation on farm related issues and poor rains did not evoke the desired results”.
Prominent among those who skipped the PM’s NITI-Aayog meeting on 15 July were West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu’s J Jayalalithaa, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik and UP CM Akhilesh Yadav.  Only exception being the Marxist CM Manik Sarkar of Tripura who despite strong differences between BJP and the communists attended the meetings.
Of course, all gave it a miss citing different reasons. “The country has in the process lost a chance of establishing healthy ground rules for cooperative federalism”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley later summed it up acidly.
The meeting with north-east chief ministers later in the evening was also highlighted by the boycott by Congress chief ministers of Meghalaya, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. It ended up much low-key with only three NE chief ministers – TR Zeliang (Nagaland), whose party is part of NDA, Manik Sarkar (Tripura) and Pawan Kumar Chamling (Sikkim) participating.
Congress-ruled Mizoram was represented by its Finance minister.
“Since there was no meeting ground between the views of the Congress and the government, there was no use of the party chief ministers attending the meet,” Congress spokesperson RPN Singh justified the party CMs stance.
The public debate on the merits of Governor’s office and certain discretionary powers vested in him/her in the ultimate analysis needs a closer look. There must be a review on the very relevance of Article 356-357 that allows Centre the power to dismiss the state government or dissolve a state assembly.
Nirendra Dev (The writer is a Spl Representative with The Statesman)