An Analysis of Article 356 in Coalition Era of Indian Politics

Introduction

The provision of emergency in a state under Article 356 of the Indian Constitution has been one of the most debatable issues in the political arena. This Article, inheriting the legacy of colonial rule, ¹ has vested the Union government with the extraordinary power to take over the government of a State by imposing the President’s rule on the ground of failure of constitutional machinery in the concerned State. The proclamation of President’s Rule under Article 356 can be made if the President is satisfied from the report of the Governor of the State or otherwise that the government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Again, as contemplated in Article 365, if a state fails to comply with the federal directives, the President can lawfully hold that a situation has arisen in which the government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and thereby can dismiss a state government under Article 356 for its non-compliance with Central directive. Both circumstances denote that the President has constitutionally been made the final authority to proclaim emergency in a State (Siwach, 1985).

The successive Central governments have used Article 356 many times to the detriment of the essential spirit of this constitutional provision; which is to act as a safeguard to the elected State governments facing a breakdown in the law-and-order situation. Furthermore, history has observed that this provision has usually been used against State governments where the opposition is in power. Indeed, the arbitrary dismissal of the elected governments and the deliberate delaying of elections to suit the political fortunes of the ruling party at the Centre have operationally suspended democracy at the state level. ‘To deny a state, democracy for so long is to tempt absolute power to corrupt absolutely so that even sensitivity for the need for democracy disappears; and the transition back to democracy—already difficult to be deferred altogether’ (Dhavan, 1989, p. 522). Why a duly elected state government in a federal democratic country cannot be expected to invariably deal with a crisis situation without such a provision? Given the frequent and improper use of this power by the Centre, Basu (2012, p. 364) has pointed out that ‘it is a drastic coercive power which takes nearly the substance away from the normal federal polity prescribed by the Constitution’.

Even during the Constituent Assembly debates, this Article received vehement opposition from some constitutional experts, including H. V. Kamath, S. L. Saxena, P. S. Deshmukh, Kazi Syed Karimuddin, H. N. Kunzru and others, for its liability of being misused merely for political purposes. Furthermore, the use of the vague term ‘otherwise’ made Kamath dub this power of the President a constitutional crime (Siwach, 1985, p. 155). Besides, he was quite certain that it could—and should not—be used for ‘resolving ministerial crisis’ (Dhavan, 1989, p. 532). On the other hand, the Drafting Committee Chairman, B. R. Ambedkar and several other members defended its inclusion in the Constitution for the sake of preserving national unity and integrity given the then prevalence of volatile socio-political situations in the country (Rajashekara, 1987). Ambedkar justified its inclusion, particularly for the considerable acquaintance with such a provision since colonial rule (Siwach, 1985). Besides, he was quite optimistic about the reasonable and fair use of Article 356 since the final decision-making authority pertaining to its invocation lies with the constitutional head of the State. According to him, the President is endowed with enough powers such as issuing warnings to erring states or ordering fresh elections, which would help in preventing the abuse of Article 356. ² Thus, he assured that it would be applied in the rarest of rare cases. Moreover, the Constitution-makers anticipated that this provision would practically remain a ‘dead letter’ (Ray, 1982). This implies that a high faith was placed in the Union government to make the judicious and reasonable exercise of this power for safeguarding the ailing States. Therefore, as Siwach (1985, p. 154) observed, Article 356 was taken almost verbatim from Section 93 of the Government of India Act 1935 without any substantial modifications.

However, the frequent and improper use of Article 356 by the Centre has disproved the expectations of the Constitution-framers. Observing its misuse in the very beginning of the functioning of the Indian polity, Ambedkar changed his stance on this provision and held that, ‘The people have got a very legitimate ground for suspicion that the government is manipulating the Article in the Constitution to maintain their party in office in all parts of India…. This is a rape of the Constitution’ (p. 156). Thus, the pervasiveness of political prejudices has overshadowed the inherent merit of having such an emergency provision in a pluralist democracy like India.

Yet, this provision has not remained unaffected by the changing trends in the electoral politics of the country. The rising importance of regional parties in national politics and the ensuing dawn of coalition governments at Centre, especially since the late 1980s, has marked a watershed in the electoral landscape of the country. This shifting electoral politics coupled with economic and political innovations ³ in the 1990s have, in effect, rendered a new dimension to the Centre–State relations with a significant bearing on the scope and intent of using Article 356. Indeed, the shift from a Single-party majority government to a multi-party coalition government in national politics has wide-ranging implications for the operationalisation of this Article. As is evident, there has been a significant drop in the frequency of its invocation since the mid-1990s. While, the rate of invocation during 1989–2008 was 1.5 times per year on an average, in the preceding period during 1950–1967 and 1967–1989, it was an average of 2.2 and 3.1 times per year, respectively (Ziegfeld, 2012). In this context, the present article seeks to explain how the regionalisation of Indian party system and coalition politics has influenced the trend of invoking Article 356 in the recent period.

The first section of this paper deals with the introduction and the constitutional debate on an Article 356. The second section elaborates on the invocation of this Article in the pre- and present-coalition government phases of politics. The third section explains how the political change brought about by the coalition politics since 1990s has created the conditions for restraining Central transgressions on State governance, and discusses the prospects of rationally employing this Article in this phase of coalition politics. The fourth section deals with the suggestions for reforms and conclusion.

The Invocation of Article 356 in the Pre-Coalition Phase (1950–1989)

The pre-coalition phase of Indian electoral politics has generally been divided into two sub-phases, that is, the period of 1951–1967 and 1967–1989. The period covering the first four general elections from 1951–1952 to 1967 witnessed one party dominance system where the Congress party remained in power both in the Centre and the states (Kothari, 1971). The Congress’s dominance in electoral politics in general and Nehru’s dominance within the party in particular, had generated a tendency for political convergence and set into motion a centralising federal process. During this period, the State governments did enjoy a considerable measure of operational autonomy, but it was under the aegis of Centre’s political dominance. Yet, the marginal presence of the State-level parties and other national parties in the electoral politics had enabled the Congress to hold its preponderance in State politics. Such preponderance became evident when President’s rule was first imposed in Punjab in 1951 even though the Bhargava Ministry had an absolute majority in the Assembly. This crisis occurred because the Congress high command at New Delhi did not want Bhargava to continue (Dhavan, 1989). Thus, this extraordinary power was, in its first instance, exercised for resolving a party’s internal problems and fulfilling the vested interests of political elites at the Centre. Remarkably, the partisan use of Article 356 in the States having a non-Congress government also began during this period. In the year 1959, the dismissal of the Communist government in Kerala despite holding a majority support in the Assembly had set an unhealthy precedent letting the Union government arbitrarily invoke Article 356 in such States ruled by an opposition party (Dua, 1979).

Though partisan use of Article 356 began with Nehru’s regime, however, its widespread misuse occurred particularly during the second phase of pre-coalition politics, that is, 1967–1989. Dua (1979, p. 612) argued ‘…that Mrs Gandhi used the instrument not only for partisan reasons but also for personal reasons for liquidating dissent against her autocratic rule’. During Indira Gandhi’s regime (1966–1984), except for the period 1977–1979, Several states like West Bengal (1968–1969, 1970–1971, 1971–1972), Kerala (1979–1980), Uttar Pradesh (1968–1969), Orissa (1973–1974), Gujarat (1974–1975), Tamil Nadu (1976–1977), Punjab (1983–1985), and others, were subjected to long periods of President’s rule. Elections were deliberately delayed in these States. In Andhra Pradesh, Article 356 was invoked in 1973 to sort out the intra-party problems which were not relevant to the purpose of this emergency provision. Even in the States like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and so forth, the governments were framed as corrupt or having links with terrorists for the dismissal regardless of their majority in the respective legislatures. Dhavan (1989, p. 522) argued, ‘In each case, regime-interests have triumphed over constitutional sensibilities’. Thus, the nature of political leadership has greatly influenced its invocation.

Again, since the 1967 general elections, this provision witnessed a spike in its use despite the decline of ruling Congress party’s dominance in Parliament as well as in several States (Ray, 1982). In nine states out of the then eighteen, that is, Punjab, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the non-Congress governments were formed (Siwach, 1985). The regional parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Akali Dal, National Conference, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and so on fared well in their respective state Assembly elections, formed governments on their own at the State level, or became partners in the coalition government of national parties and thereby, rendered the decline of Congress’s hegemonic position in State-level electoral politics (Buwa, 2011). Also, these non-Congress State governments became more assertive in their challenge to the overriding authority of the Centre by raising demands for regional autonomy and waging mass agitations against the overbearing Congress leadership in national politics (Rath, 1984; Siwach, 1985).

Yet, the increasing practice of political defections owing to lack of party cohesion, coupled with the then political impasse within the inter-party coalition governments resulted in the quick fall of these non-Congress governments, which eventually stirred the invocation of Article 356 in these States. The paradox is that, while Haryana was placed under the President’s rule owing to political instability which was primarily caused by the rising incidences of political defections in 1967–1968, the State government headed by the Congress party in West Bengal comprising all the defectors was not brought under President’s rule. Such instance of partisan and convenient use of Article 356 spelled a travesty of democracy (Siwach, 1985). It further gave a wide impression that most of the defections leading to the invocation of Article 356 in this period were the outcome of political manipulation and manoeuvring by the ruling party at the Centre to depose the unwanted State governments. Again, in 1977, the ruling Janata Party, by inventing a novel strategy with a single Presidential order, imposed President’s rule in nine Congress-ruled states like Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, on the ground of the incumbent Congress party’s dismal performance in the parliamentary elections (Dua, 1979). This similar strategy of the Janata Party was turned against itself by the Congress (India) when it returned to power in 1980 general elections. Siwach (1985, p. 156) has articulated the partisan tendency on the part of a national dispensation in the following words: ‘There is a saying in Bengali that whosoever goes to Lanka becomes a Ravan which is almost true about Indian Politics as well because both the Congress and Janata governments at the Centre dismissed the State governments, keeping in view the party interests’.

In response to the mounting anti-Congressism ⁴ and the increasing pressures from state governments, the union government appointed the Sarkaria Commission in 1983 to examine the Centre–State relations (Siwach, 1985). The Commission’s Report, 1987, revealed that around 65% of the cases of Presidential rule were unreasonable or unwarranted as the Centre had arbitrarily intervened in the state’s political affairs (Srivastava, 2016). Though the Commission refrained from recommending its abolition, yet urged the federal functionaries to exercise this power with due restraint and use it as a last resort (Hosamani & Khan, 2012). However, it seemed that the Union government paid no heed to these recommendations because, within a short time, it arbitrarily imposed the President’s rule in states like Nagaland (1988), Karnataka (1989), Meghalaya (1991), and others, for subserving its political interests. These emergencies were considered to be vital to the Congress’s strategies for the upcoming general elections as the state-level election outcomes had by this time been crucial in influencing national-level elections, thanks to the dynamics of political regionalism.

The Invocation of Article 356 in the Period of Coalition Politics (1989 Onwards)

Since 1989, an intense level of political regionalisation and the dawn of coalition politics had set out a new phase in the electoral politics of the country. A highly fragmented multi-party system with the decline of electoral strength of the Congress party coupled with the inadequate vote base of other national parties like Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal (JD) and others, and the gradual increase in the vote share of regional parties since the 1989 general elections, whipped up a major swing in Centre–State relations in India (Singh & Verney, 2003). Evidently, from the mid-1990s, in particular, from the 1996 Lok Sabha election ⁵ onwards, regional parties like DMK, TDP, Assam Gana Parishad, Congress (Socialist), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Sikkim Sangram Parishad, Kerala Congress, and others, emerged as kingmakers at the Centre. These parties were instrumental in the government formation at the national level either supporting from outside or being coalition partners in multi-party coalition governments like National Front, United Front, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or United Progressive Alliance (UPA) (Buwa, 2011). This in turn led to the increased bargaining strength of regional parties vis-à-vis Central government in the political process (Aiyar & Sircar, 2020).

Given these changing dynamics of Indian politics, Sadanandan (2012) argued that, the regional parties, by being effective veto players within the Central cabinet and Parliament, have often been able to restrain the parliamentary executive from imposing President’s rule in the States. The coalition governments survival with the backing of regional parties has indeed been a major factor in diminishing the incentives for the arbitrary and frequent invocation of Article 356. Again, Varshney (2013, pp. 43–44) describes these changing dynamics of power relations as follows:

The power of states has been rising in the coalitional era of Indian politics that began in 1989. As a result, it should not be surprising that the use of Article 356 of India’s constitution, used repeatedly by Delhi to dismiss state governments in the 1970s and 1980s, has dramatically declined over the last decade and a half. Article 356 still exists in the constitution, but political realities are such that Delhi can use it to suspend state governments only at its peril.

In the current coalition government era, when the cabinet form of governance is subsiding, the Prime Minister and his close party associates no longer enjoy supreme decision-making power, as the concurrence of other coalition allies, mostly state-level parties also matter to pass emergency proclamation in the national legislature. As seen, parties like Telugu Desam Party, Shiromani Akali Dal, DMK and others, have been quite successful since the mid-1990s in resisting the Union government from imposing Central rule in the states like Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and others (Sadanandan, 2012, p. 261). This happened because of the overwhelming position of these State-level parties in the Central cabinet as well as in the Parliament.

Furthermore, the dramatic developments of Indian politics during the early 1990s, such as the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies, and the institutionalisation of Panchayat Raj system under the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendment Acts, 1993 and 1994, have extended more autonomy to the State governments in the national planning and governance process (Singh & Verney, 2003). During this period, the judiciary and the executive, that is, the President, were also deemed to be more assertive about their role and power in ensuring reasonable use of Article 356. In essence, the judiciary, which had hitherto preferred to avoid delving into the matter of imposition of the President’s rule viewing it as merely of political nature, began to seriously review the constitutional validity of such cases. In 1994, the S. R. Bommai v. Union of India case turned out to be a historic judgment in which the Supreme Court firmly outlined the ambits within which Article 356 was supposed to rationally operate (Bagri, 2012).

In the S. R. Bommai case, the apex court held the proclamation of the President’s rule in Karnataka in 1989 as unconstitutional, establishing that it is a conditional power, not an absolute one and that the dissolution of the Assembly must be preceded by the ratification of the presidential proclamation by both the houses of Parliament (Hosamani & Khan, 2012). Yet within a short time of the judgment pronounced, the arbitrary dismissal of the state government in Uttar Pradesh in 1995 and its restoration by the Allahabad High court in 1998 shows the Centre’s continuing tendency to arbitrarily invoke this Article by disregarding the Bommai judgment. Yet, the position of Allahabad High Court in nullifying the state emergency can be attributed to the effects of the Bommai judgement. Again, in the Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India case, 2005, the apex court reiterated the validity of the restoration of the Legislative Assembly in case the imposition of the President’s rule is found unconstitutional. In subsequent years, the apex court is seen playing a fair, pro-active role in examining the constitutional validity of the presidential proclamations and restoring parliamentary democracy at the state level, thereby checking the abuse of Article 356 (Sadanandan, 2012).

Similarly, in 1997 and 1998, the then President of India, K. R. Narayanan called on the Central government to reconsider its recommendation of dismissing the State governments in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, respectively. Again in 2007, the then President APJ Abdul Kalam expressed his reservations about the Congress-led Central government’s decision to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh State government. In these cases, the State governments were safeguarded against the President’s rule. As highlighted by Sadanandan (2012, p. 267), ‘These assertions of independence by the judiciary and the President occurred in a new political environment engendered by the rise of regional parties’.

Yet, at the same time, some States were arbitrarily subjected to the President’s rule owing to the prevailing volatile situation stemming from the hung Assembly caused with the ever-burgeoning haunt for power among politicians in Assembly elections. On many occasions, the shifting of political loyalty among power-seeking politicians has been a common phenomenon in State politics. For instance, the 2004 Karnataka Assembly election resulted in a hung Assembly where the BJP, the Congress and the JD(S) parties were placed first, second and third, respectively. This situation led to the race for power among these three parties. And, the lust for the Chief Minister’s post was so paramount that within three years, the State witnessed two different coalition governments as well as the imposition of President’s rule twice (Hosamani & Khan, 2012). At the first instance, in 2005, the Congress and the JD(S) formed a coalition government in their ideological opposition to the BJP. This government collapsed in the wake of the JD(S) faction led by H. D. Kumarswamy walking out of it for striking a deal with BJP. So, in the second instance, the JD(S)–BJP alliance came to power. However, the similar issue of power-sharing between the ruling JD(S) and its coalition partner BJP in 2007 led to the withdrawal of support of the latter from the Kumarswamy government and the subsequent imposition of the President’s rule in the State on 9 October 2007. Again, on 8 November 2007, the first-ever BJP-led government in the south in general and Karnataka in particular was formed under the leadership of B. S. Yediyurappa with letters of support from the JD(S). Yet, BJP’s refusal to accept JD(S) demands to sign a new power-sharing deal allotting plum ministerial portfolios to it made the JD(S) refuse to vote for BJP, and Yediyurappa quit his post leading to the re-imposition of the President’s rule in the State for the second time (Hosamani & Khan, 2012, pp. 473–474).

Similarly, the fractured outcome of the 2005 Bihar Assembly elections led to the invocation of Article 356 in the State. In this case, the Supreme Court, in 2006, ruled that the imposition of the President’s rule without giving the chance to the elected legislators to form a new government was unconstitutional and a mala fide act by the President (Prakash, 2016). Also, the apex court reprimanded the concerned Governor’s action in this case for misleading the Council of Ministers (Kumar, 2019, p. 3). It is rather startling that the apex court’s repeated cautioning of the Governors for their partisan actions in imposing the President’s rule since the Bommai case, 1994, has not made them act as neutral and impartial administrators in their respective States. In fact, the whimsical actions on the part of the Governors in States’ political process has led to the controversial imposition of President’s rule in recent times.

As seen, in January 2016, Arunachal Pradesh was placed under President’s rule due to a political crisis triggered by the partisan action of the State Governor. The Congress government indeed fell prey to the game of power politics involving dissidence within the ruling party, and the opposition parties joining hands with the dissident rebels to bring down the government (Venkataramanan, 2016). Yet, the incumbent regime’s failure to address the dissidence in its camp and the deliberate attempt to avoid a floor test led to a situation of constitutional impasse where the session of the State Assembly could not be held for more than six months. However, it is the Governor’s unilateral action of advancing a scheduled sitting of the Assembly and fixing its agenda without the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers that created troubles for the Chief Minister. The apex court not only reinstated the suspended government by declaring the President’s rule in the state as ultravires but also condemned Governor’s action as illegitimate. As demonstrated, the President’s rule in the State was unwarranted and could have been avoided, had the Governor allowed the troubled Chief Minister to prove his majority on the floor of the house (Venkatesan, 2016). Furthermore, such excessive political manipulation compelled the reinstated Chief Minister to resign apprehending the loss of majority support (Talukdar, 2017).

Likewise, Uttarakhand State was brought under the controversial President’s rule in March 2016 on similar grounds of constitutional breakdown engineered by a rebellion in the ruling party and the unusual passage of the appropriation bill through a voice vote rather than a division (Hebbar & Jeelani, 2016). It became more contentious when the Congress government was denied to prove its majority in the Assembly (Anand, 2016). Yet, the apex court’s order for a court-monitored floor test not only reiterated the essence of a floor test in parliamentary democracy but also reminded the Union government and the Governor of their constitutional obligations towards a democratically elected State government.

Again, the proclamation of President’s rule in Maharashtra in 2019 was indefensible. Moreover, it is the partisan role of the Governor that made the proclamation of the President’s rule more contentious. The 2019 Assembly election resulted in a fractured mandate with the BJP emerging as the largest party in the Assembly with 105 seats, followed by Shiv Sena with 56 seats, NCP with 54 and Congress with 44 seats (Rajagopal, 2019). While BJP having fallen short of forty seats and failing to bring Shiv Sena into the alliance, expressed its inability to form the government, the Governor in view of exploring the possibility of forming the government invited the third largest party in the Assembly, the NCP, to stake its claim to form the government. Unfortunately, when the NCP sought more time to muster the support of the Shiv Sena and the Congress for forming the government, the Governor sent a report to the President recommending the imposition of the President’s rule and keeping the State Assembly in suspended animation. If such a situation has arisen where no party was able to form the government either on its own or in alliance, why the fresh election was not sought by dissolving the Assembly? Keeping the Assembly in suspended animation was aimed to facilitate the BJP’s more time to form government and obstruct other parties forming the government. As evident, the proclamation of the President’s rule was revoked in haste only to prompt the BJP to install its government (The Hindu, 2019). But when the Supreme Court directed the newly installed BJP government to prove its majority, the Chief Minister gave his resignation in fear of defeat (Venkatesan, 2019). Eventually, the previous three claimant parties, the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress, formed the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi which propelled to power after undergoing a series of political events. This is not certainly the end of the power game, as it would continue so long as perverse political inclination and opportunism remain paramount in politics. In the whole process, the Governor’s decision to recommend the President’s rule by denying an adequate time to prove the ability of the NCP and the Shiv Sena delegation and form the government was dubious (Deshpande, 2019).

An instance of the proclamation of President’s rule was seen in Puducherry in February 2021 when the incumbent Congress government resigned on account of a loss of majority triggered by defection and there was no alternative claimant to form the next government. It was alleged that the ruling BJP at the Centre played its party politics game to bring down the Congress-led government in the Union Territory (The Print, 2021). Even before it, in 2018, the Union government conveniently applied Article 356 in Jammu & Kashmir for the abrogation of Article 370. Such an invocation was rationalised for achieving the region’s integration with the rest of the country and obliterating any possible foreign claim over its territory (Jacob, 2020). It is quite apparent that the practice of employing Article 356 arbitrarily against the opposition-ruled States still continues. Yet, in these recent cases, the BJP-led Central regime, for seeking its political interests, has targeted primarily the Congress headed State governments, rather than the regional party-headed states.

Political Developments Since 2014 Onwards and Their Implications for Article 356

Apparently, the 2014 general election marked the onset of a new phase in India’s electoral politics with the emergence of a new national party, that is, the BJP as the single dominant party in Parliament since 1989 and the shift to the single-party majority government (Aiyar & Sircar, 2020). Also, apprehension has surfaced about the revert to a deeply centralised political process given the BJP’s mammoth majority at the Centre coupled with the huge popularity of the party supremo and the sway of the party’s ideological project of Hindutva (Aiyar & Sircar, 2020; Tillin, 2015). Furthermore, the significant drop in the vote share of regional parties in two consecutive Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019, levelled at 49% and 44%, respectively, has thrown up political questions about the declining role of regional parties in the national government formation and the reverse of political regionalisation (Aiyar & Sircar, 2020). It is now questionable whether the decreasing role of regional parties in the survival of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre since 2014 would render them to an ineffective role in restraining Central transgression on State governance.

Yet, in these changing political conditions, the BJP’s majority government at the Centre, in the attempt to expand its electoral position across the country, is not likely to target the opposition party-led State governments under Article 356, as the Congress did during its regime of single-party majority government in the country. Several factors account for it. First, the regional parties having a solid voter-base in their respective States still enjoy sizable voter support in the national election (Tillin, 2015). Moreover, the Congress’s decline and the absence of any national alternative to the BJP at the Centre in the current political scenario have enabled the regional parties to collectively form the chief opposition in the national Parliament . Second, BJP does not have a stronghold at the state level as it currently began to make inroads into many States’ politics, including Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, and others (Aiyar & Sircar, 2020). This can be a major factor in restraining the arbitrary use of Article 356. Third, though there has been a drastic decline in Congress’s popularity as well as vote share over the years in Lok Sabha and some State Assembly elections, yet, in several Hindi-belt states, it continues to pose a direct competition to BJP. Thus, BJP does not enjoy as wide popularity across the country as Congress did in the first four decades. As such, any attempt to replace popular rule with President’s rule can have a boomerang effect, since BJP’s emergence as popular national party dates back to the recent time only, that is, 1996 onwards. Again, the judiciary’s proactive role and firm stand against the unreasonable proclamations of the President’s rule since the mid-1990s has been a deterrent against the misuse of these discretionary powers. Furthermore, in an electoral landscape of increasing political participation, the Central regime is not likely to take the risk of disregarding the rational judgment of the voters who prudently differentiate State politics from national politics and thereby cast their vote distinctively for two different parties at national and State levels. In sum, the prevailing context of heightened political regionalisation and the shift towards a multi-party coalition government at the national level has reduced the incentives for the national regime to arbitrarily impose the President’s rule in its non-ruled states. The fact that regional parties hold wide popular support in their respective States has discouraged the BJP-led Centre to target the state governments headed by regional parties.

The Way Forward

The potential of Article 356 for further misuse has neither been completely removed, nor it can ever be possible. Yet, its complete abolition from the Constitution is undesirable given its utility in a state facing an authentic situation of crisis, such as the reorganisation of States after independence leading to the creation of new States like Kerala (1956), Punjab and Haryana (1966) and Manipur and Tripura (1972) and others. Article 356 had to be imposed upon these newly created States in order to conduct the regular administration along the lines of the Constitution till elections to the legislative assemblies could be held and popular governments installed. A similar case occurred in the state of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, when the then Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy put in his papers over the passing of Andhra Pradesh State Reorganisation Bill in Lok Sabha and none of the political parties in the state were willing to form a government due to the fact that election was to be held soon (The Hindu, 2014). Other instances of necessitating its invocation include political instability in states due to unstable and short-lived coalition governments such as those witnessed in Jharkhand in 2009, 2010 and 2013 which gave Article 356 greater credibility (The Hindu, 2016). Besides, the essence of Article 356 lies in its potential to restrain those State governments which tend to deviate from the constitutional path of governance.

Yet, the absence of any concrete efforts in restricting its partisan use through statutory reforms may increase the vulnerability of the Article to further misuse. Though its use has drastically come down in the era of coalition politics, yet old habits die hard. ⁶ At least, the meaning of the vague expression ‘failure of the constitutional machinery’ needs to be clarified to reduce the possibility of its arbitrary use. Also, there should be a rethinking regarding the deletion of ambiguous and subjective words such as ‘otherwise’ and ‘satisfaction’ contained in Article 356. The Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations regarding the appointment of Governors and their functioning should be given serious consideration so that the Governors’ frequent partisan interventions in the affairs of State Assemblies can be largely checked. Moreover, the elected State governments should not be left to the mercy of any discretionary powers of the constitutional functionaries of the Union government. In essence, the spirit of cooperative federalism in which States are likely to assert more rights and enjoy more autonomy should not only be espoused but also practised.