COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

President sets the ball rolling

George Iype in New Delhi

As Opposition parties are caught in a cleft stick over forming the next government, President K R Narayanan on Monday consulted legal experts to ascertain the constitutional options in the wake of the defeat of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and the ensuing political vacuum.

Opposition parties have insisted that they would initiate the next step to form a new government soon after the President invites Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

But Congress leaders, at the same time, fear that the stringent norms set by Narayanan in 1998 could prove to be a major stumbling block in the government formation.

It has been a well-established precedent that the President seeks written assurances of support from the partners of a proposed coalition at the time of ministry making.

In March last year, Narayanan invited Vajpayee to form the government only after he submitted to the President supporting letters from all the allies that backed the Bharatiya Janata Party.

When he submitted his resignation, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani had emphasised before the President that he should follow the same procedure as was adopted last year for the ministry-making process.

Former President Shankar Dayal Sharma also followed this practice when the United Front leader H D Deve Gowda was invited to form the government in 1996. In fact, Sharma had even sought to secure undertakings from alliance partners on crucial policies and programmes.

While many constitutional experts believe that Narayanan will follow this precedent, the narrow margin of one vote which led to the collapse of the Vajpayee government has compelled the President to proceed with enormous caution.

Although the Opposition mustered 270 votes during the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, the outgoing BJP government has cautioned the President that the proposed Congress-led coalition will not be able to present more than 270 numbers before him.

On Monday, Narayanan met leading constitutional experts Fali S Nariman, Soli Sorabji, K Parasaran and Ashok V Desai in an attempt to ascertain what should be his next move if Congress president Gandhi fails to provide letters of support to him.

In that event, experts say there are two options: One, allow Vajpayee to continue as caretaker prime minister till mid-term elections are called. Second, if the BJP insists that it be given a second chance to prove its majority, allow it to furnish the proof of support.

"The President wants to ensure that there should be no room for political instability. But the present numbers in the outgoing ruling coalition and the Opposition parties are equal and no group is in a position to offer a stable government," a Rashtrapati Bhavan official told Rediff On The Net.

Though the Opposition parties had claimed that an alternative set-up would be in place within five minutes of the Vajpayee government's downfall, the failure of the Congress and others to approach him with the demand to form the next government has worried the President, he said.

The official also stated that the President does not want to take a hasty decision by appointing a new government. "The President wants to ensure that the Union Budget presented by the BJP government is unanimously passed by all the political parties in Parliament to avoid a financial crisis in the country," he added.

While the President is expected to take a decision on Tuesday or Wednesday, the Congress party made it very clear to him that he could call Gandhi any time to form the next government.

Sonia on Monday despatched two confidants -- Oscar Fernandes and P J Kurien -- to the President to submit to him the resolutions of the Congress Working Committee and the Congress Parliamentary Party that authorised her the task of forming a new government.

Sources said the Congress president's deft move is to convince Narayanan that there is unanimity within the party over her candidature.

Tell us what you think of this report