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Will BJP form the government in Delhi ?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

July 18, 2014

Of late, the capital is abuzz with the speculations over whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can form the government in Delhi or not? Whether it does or not, the issue yet again brings into focus the limitations of the Anti-Defection Act and the prevalence of poaching in the corridors of power.

It also reflects on the compulsion of political parties to oscillate between moral posturing and Machiavellian methods to cling to power by hook or by crook. The issue has yet again focussed on the important role of Governor, and reflects on why the ruling dispensation would want a friendlier governor. As the Delhi political drama unfolds, the role of the governor comes under further scrutiny.

What set rumour mills on fire?

The speculations of the BJP eyeing Delhi were triggered off after the new state BJP president, Satish Upadhyay – who replaces Dr Harshwardhan (now union health minister) – said that his party was “open to all options”.

Suddenly, it has opened a can of worms because none of the political parties in the present Assembly has the strength to form the government on its own. (The Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP have 28 MLAs each. The Congress has eight, the Shiromani Akali Dal, Janata Dal (United) and independents, one each).

Rival political parties are now at daggers drawn with the BJP over how it could feel so confident of working out an option to form the government after having expressed till recently, its inability to muster the numbers to form a government on its own? They suspect foul play and fear poaching of their respective MLAs.

Significantly, Upadhyay’s remark was made just a couple of days after Lt-Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung’s statement that the possibility of forming a government “in this Assembly itself” was still being explored.

The Role of Governor :

Apparently, the LG seems well within his jurisdiction to explore all possibilities since the Delhi Assembly is still in suspended animation. But his detractors, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in particular, have missed no chance to attribute motives to his decisions.

That Kejriwal accused the governor of acting in a partisan manner is not without a reason. After all, he does nurture a grudge against the LG for rejecting the outgoing AAP government’s recommendation for dissolution of the Assembly and instead suggesting the imposition of President’s rule by keeping the Assembly under suspended animation. The AAP has already challenged the decision to keep the legislature under suspended animation instead of dissolving it and the case is pending in the Supreme Court.

Yet, before attributing political motives behind the LG’s latest statement, it may be recalled that Najib was appointed as LG by the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and not the present BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. This makes the whole episode all the more interesting given that the Union Home Ministry has distanced itself from the whole controversy surrounding Najib’s latest statement. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has denied that his ministry had given the LG any directive to explore the options for government formation!

The options before the BJP:

As for the BJP, its leaders now are in a damage control mode, making statements that the party would never indulge into horse trading. Yet, they remain ambiguous over the issue of forming the government in the state.

Time and again lawmakers have sought to address the serious issue of horse trading. The 52nd Amendment to the Constitution has provisions for disqualification of legislators on ground of defection. But poaching remains a serious issue. One still remembers a Shankarsinh Vaghela herding his flock of BJP MLAs to distant Khajuraho to avoid poaching after he split the BJP in Gujarat in the mid-1990s. More recently in 2006, wary of poaching from the UPA camp, the NDA had taken its MLAs from Jharkhand to Rajasthan.

The present Delhi scenario gives the issue of defection an entirely new context. Supposing that the BJP wants to form the government by any means, fair or unfair, it would find difficult to win over two-thirds of the 28 AAP legislators, as required by the Anti-defection Law, to form the government. Instead, it may be easier for the BJP to win two-thirds of the eight Congress MLAs.

It is in this light that the allegations of the BJP approaching the Congress with money bags should be seen. (It is a different matter though that whether the Congress MLAs will yield, as four of them are Muslims and one, Sikh).
Another option being cited is that the BJP wins the support of the two Independents and persuades the Congress MLAs and a few AAP MLAs too, who might not like a fresh election for the fear of losing, to abstain from the voting on the confidence motion to enable it form the government.

Will the BJP bite the bait?

The life of any such government would be precariously perched on the mercy of its rivals and the question, therefore, is – why would the BJP want such an instable government? It is not difficult to find the answer. Many of the BJP legislators are unsure of winning again given higher vote percentage of the AAP in the Parliament election in Delhi. This despite the fact that the BJP made a clean sweep at the general elections in the city state. The failure of the Modi government to check price rise (particularly the steep hike in the power tariff) too has adversely affected their winning chances.

Power is intoxicating. Nobody wants to abandon power. (Arvind Kejriwal did so and he regrets that now). So, why should the BJP give up any opportunity of clinging to power? All political parties crave for power and so does the Lotus. We have many past examples to prove so. No prize, therefore, for guessing right the purpose behind all these political manoeuvrings! But where will they lead to? Just wait and watch.