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Home ministry gets to work on Rabri's dismissal

George Iype in New Delhi

As the war of words between Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi and the Centre becomes hotter by the day, Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani is looking for fresh options to sack the Rashtriya Janata Dal government.

For the first time since the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led coalition came to power, Advani has convened a meeting of the Inter-State Council on December 19 to discuss Article 356.

Headed by Advani, the six-member council has as its members Defence Minister George Fernandes (Samata Party), Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Surjit Singh Barnala (Shiromani Akali Dal), Law Minister M Thambi Durai (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha (Bharatiya Janata Party), and Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde (Lok Shakti).

The meeting will also be attended by the ISC's standing committee members who are the chief ministers of important states like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Home ministry officials said Advani wants to take his Cabinet colleagues and the chief ministers into confidence through the ISC before launching a second offensive in Bihar.

"The home minister wants to thoroughly discuss and debate Article 356 with the chief ministers before once again recommending imposition of President's rule in Bihar," a senior home ministry official told Rediff On The NeT.

While some chief ministers have demanded that Article 356 be scrapped, others want it to remain, but with safeguards.

Among the safeguards that will come up for discussion on December 19 are cuts in the six-month tenure of President's rule and the two-month time frame for ratification of the promulgation by Parliament.

President K R Narayanan had returned the Cabinet's first proposal to sack the Bihar government in September, questioning the decision to invoke Article 356.

Narayanan had quoted the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission and the Supreme Court judgment in the S R Bommai case to argue that the Centre should have first issued a formal warning to the state government.

Though the Cabinet did not press for Rabri Devi's ouster then, it stuck to its stand that the state was a fit case for imposition of President's rule.

Frequent adverse reports from Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari and his running battle with the chief minister have forced Advani to once again build a case to dismiss the Bihar government.

The officials said Home Secretary B P Singh has already prepared a warning letter to be issued to the Rabri Devi regime, holding it responsible for cultivating a "mafia raj" in Bihar.

Once the Cabinet approves the letter prepared under the Articles 256 and 257 of the Constitution, a copy will be sent to the President.

The officials said the home secretary's letter is virtually an order to the Bihar government to cleanse the state of criminals and anti-socials and improve law and order.

It contains a warning that failure to implement the Centre's directive within the specified time frame will lead to dismissal of the state government and imposition of President's rule.

It also calls for information, under Article 78, relating to law and order and the economic situation in the state.

"Our case to sack the Rabri government is a water-tight one. We do not think the President will return the Cabinet recommendation this time," an official said.

But he added that while the ministry is ready with its 'axe Rabri plan', the Vajpayee government is yet to take a final decision in the matter.

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