NEW DELHI: The center imposed President’s rule in Uttar Pradesh for six months amid stinging Criticism from the Congress, the United Front’s chief ally, which is propping up the Union Government. The proclamation of President’s rule came late at night after President S.D. Sharma signed the declaration following the Union Cabinet’s recommendation to that effect. Though Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda met the President at 11:45 am, and then talked to him at 4 pm, it took several hours before the proclamation was signed by the President. Before the imposition of fresh Central rule in the state, the earlier spell of President’s rule, slated to expire at midnight tonight, was revoked and the new U.P, Assembly was constituted in Lucknow. This thus becomes the second time President’s rule has been imposed in the UF’s nearly four month old rule, the first being in Gujarat. The Union Cabinet acted on UP Governor Ramesh Bhandan’’s report that no political party or a combination of parties was in a position to prove its majority and form a stable government. Bhandani’s report reached here, in the morning and the Cabinet, met at 2 pm and discussed it. The Governor informed the Center that the BJP had staked its claim but it did not convey how it would master the requisite number of MLA’s to form a stable government. The maximum which the BJP managed was 180, 33 short of the required 213 to form a government. And with the UF and the Cong BSP refusing to support the BJP, Central rule became imminent.

The UF sought to justify President’s rule saying it had no other option, but this failed to satisfy the Congress, whose president Sitaram Kesn, issued a strong statement flaying the UF for not allowing a government to be formed in Uttar Pradesh, Senior UF leader and CPI (M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet said that the Center had no option left to assure itself of a stable government in the state. “If the BJP was invited to form a government without the requisite support, it would have led to severe horse-trading. And in any case, an Assembly is not normally kept in suspended animation for long,” Surjeet said. But Kesri came up with the Congress’ strongest disapproval so far of any action of the Deve Gowda Government.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 23, 1996