Power overreach strains Centre-state ties
AS the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi was a fervent champion of the principle and practice of cooperative federalism. In June 2011, at the BJP’s national executive meet in Lucknow, he moved a resolution whose heading, “UPA: A grave threat to our federalism”, was self-explanatory. Modi levelled the accusations against the Congress which have hit him today: appropriating the law-making powers of states, misusing investigative agencies, abusing statutory and constitutional apparatuses to undermine states and using Governors as political agents. Modi had a phrase to describe the Centre. ‘Delhi Sultanate’ denoted the exercise of absolute power by a ‘potentate’ and was a throwback to the Islamic rule.
The transition from Gandhinagar to Delhi saw a change in Modi’s approach and attitude towards the states incrementally. In his first tenure, Opposition-ruled states complained against an increase in taxes and the “unfriendly” terms of reference in the 15th Finance Commission while the southern states were unhappy with the change in the base year for population census from 1971 to 2011, which they believed, would penalise them for lower population growth rates and scale down their revenue shares. Discernible too was the use of the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate to target ‘recalcitrant’ Opposition leaders, refusing to kowtow to the Centre. Such examples of Centre-state tensions seemed to recall the playbook of the Congress.
Modi is quintessentially an RSS pracharak (preacher or propagandist). Therefore, his reluctance to gain a decisive upper hand over the states from 2014 to 2019 was at odds with his mentor’s beliefs. KK Kailash, a Hyderabad University professor, wrote, “Traditionally, the BJP has been a votary of a strong Centre and like the Congress, a reluctant federalist.” Perhaps, Modi was still coming to terms with the power dynamics that defined Centre-state equations and importantly, he required the support of amicable regional parties to help the BJP/NDA pilot tricky Bills in the Rajya Sabha where the ruling coalition faced a number crunch.
A second win transformed Modi’s relationship with the states. Article 356 was used without compunction to impose President’s rule and effect suspension to gerrymander the composition of sttae assemblies to the BJP’s advantage so that a minority electoral verdict was converted into majority rule.In the string of transgressions into Opposition-governed states’ jurisdictions through various arms of the political executive, policing has become such a point of perennial dispute that states are not willing anymore to take Delhi’s interventions without resistance. Maharashtra and Punjab are examples but Assam was the most appalling “offender”. In all the instances, the provocation was political and not administrative.
Maharashtra was the most unyielding of the states in contesting the Centre, move for move, action for action, a significant reason being that the Shiv Sena, which leads the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) dispensation, was the BJP’s oldest ally before they broke up. While Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister, did not have the benefit of as long an association with the BJP as his father, Bal Thackeray, under him the Sena was a partner in the previous BJP-helmed coalition. Uddhav was familiar with the BJP’s political style.
Maharashtra and Bihar were involved in a turf war in 2020 over who called the shots over the investigation into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The Bihar elections were then around the corner, Rajput’s relatives were connected with the BJP and the BJP-Janata Dal (United) wanted to make an icon of the actor in his home state. When the case was put up before the Supreme Court, Maharashtra and Bihar filed caveat pleas, each stating that their arguments should be heard before the other and only then a judgment passed. The BJP attributed his death to a Bollywood ‘syndicate’ patronised by politicians to embarrass the Sena. The court asked for a CBI probe.
Uddhav was adopted as a role model by the Aam Aadmi Party when it decided that the Opposition should not be the placid “nice guy” while the BJP ran roughshod over its governments through “false” cases foisted by Central agencies. The AAP’s immediate context was a seditious tweet put out by a BJP cheerleader from Delhi, Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, against the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
Not as adept as the Sena in managing the intricacies of power play, the Punjab police arrested Bagga from his Delhi home on May 6, prior to which an FIR was registered against him on grounds ranging from fomenting communal enmity to criminal intimidation. As the Punjab police were en route to Mohali with Bagga, the convoy was intercepted by the Haryana Police, evidently tipped off by the Centre. It helped the BJP that the Haryana government and the Delhi cops were on its side — a circumstance that the AAP government didn’t factor in when it embarked on the Bagga venture. Eventually, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed his arrest until early July when the case will be heard.
But no case impinging on two states was as flagrant in ignoring procedures as the apprehension of Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit MLA from Gujarat’s Vadgam, who was punished for tweeting about Modi’s links with Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, on the eve of the PM’s visit to the state. In an extraordinary performance, acting on a complaint lodged in Assam’s Kokrajhar, the Kokrajhar cops journeyed to Vadgam, picked up Mevani after ransacking his home, impounding his parents’ mobile phone and his computer, arrested him at night and produced him in Assam the following morning.
Mevani’s woes didn’t end. A lady cop accused him of misbehaving with her in a police van which also seated two of her colleagues. The Barpeta court granted him bail and made damaging observations about the Assam police some of which were later shelved by the Guwahati High Court. Has Modi’s cooperative federalism slogan outlived its salience? It would seem so.
