Telangana elections are over and result will be out in a few minutes. While some exit polls predicted TRS’s win, Lagadapati survey predicted Praja Kootami’s win. Some others are predicting the possibility of Hung assembly in Telangana But there has been a debate since long that – whom should governor call first to prove their strength in case no single party gets clear majority of 60 seats. TRS, MIM, BJP contested alone while Congress, TDP, CPI, TJS, formed alliance of Praja Kootami The question is if no single party gets complete majority, whom should governor call first? Should he recognize Praja kootami alliance and call that group first if it gets more seats than TRS? Or should he disregard the alliance and call whichever is single largest party?
Governor didn’t recognize post-poll alliance of JDU-Congress
In Karnataka, BJP was single largest party though it didn’t have full majority to form the government JDU and Congress quickly formed alliance after the results but governor didn’t recognize the alliance and called BJP, which is single largest party to form the government. Of course Yedyurappa couldn’t sustain the government and later JDU and Congress formed the government. But can governor do the same to pre-poll alliance too? what does constitution say?
Article 163 and 164
The Articles 163 and 164 of the Constitution deals with this subject. Article 163 states that there shall be a Council of Ministers headed by the Chief Minister that should aid and advice the Governor in exercise of his functions, except in so far as he is by or under the Constitution required to exercise his functions or any of them in his discretion. Constitution clearly says that the Governor shall appoint the Chief Minister and appoint other Ministers on his advise. It is entirely up to to the Governor to decide in his discretion that who in his opinion is likely to command majority in the House.
No one can question Governor’s discretionary power:
So neither article 163 nor 164 clearly specifies whom should governor call in such situations. According to constitutional experts, in such a situation, the Governor has the discretion to invite anyone to form the government and his decision can’t be questioned in any court. Most of the constitutional experts opine that Governor should allow the single largest to prove majority. The Governor’s discretion can’t be questioned even in the court of a law,”
Can TRS form government if it gets 1 seat more than Congress?
Since quite sometime, political parties have been complaining on Telangana governor. TDP, BJP and other parties passed severe critical remarks on Governor. One of the main criticism on him is he is biased towards BJP and TRS. So, if TRS doesn’t get magic number of seats but still gets more seats than Congress, Governor has every right to call TRS by saying it is the single largest party. Because, as per constitution, there is no rule that governor must call largest coalition. That’s why leaders of Praja Kootami met Governor and urged him to consider the combine strength of the parties in the alliance while calling for forming the government.
Overall:
So, it is clear that constitution doesn’t clearly mention whether to consider largest party or largest alliance and it left the decision to discretion of governor. Probably constitution makers had lot of trust in gubernatorial system and expected the constitutional power like governor to always act in the best interest of people. So, they might have thought, it is best to leave such decisions to his discretion instead of writing an inflexible and rigid solution for this.
It is up to the governors to live up to the expectations of constitution makers and take decisions in the best interest of people. We have to wait and see what will happen after results
-ZURAN (@CriticZuran)
