Will legal scrutiny resolve Raj Bhavan-MVA standoff?

All eyes on response from governor’s office as Bombay High Court seeks explanation for delay in appointment of 12 people to Legislative Council

Tony Malabar Hill’s Raj Bhavan is back in the news over the pending appointment of the 12 ‘elders’ that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government has recommended to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for the upper house. Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Bombay High Court has made the governor’s secretary a respondent and sought to know the reasons for the delay. Will the Raj Bhavan secretariat respond to the court, and if it does, what will the response be? Recently, the Raj Bhavan told an RTI activist, Anil Galgali, that the names of the government nominees were not available with the information officer. Who has it if the secretariat doesn’t have it?  Who knows the current status of the appointment process? Speaking on behalf of the MVA, some ministers said that the governor would have no choice but to appoint the nominees, but their detractors in the BJP said it wasn’t binding for the governor to act upon the government’s recommendation as far as making appointments to the upper house was concerned. In this view, the forthcoming turn of events promises to be interesting, in terms of the Raj Bhavan’s next step.

The nomination politics started since 10 posts fell vacant on June 6 and two posts on June 15, 2020. Before it, the MVA had recommended the NCP’s seasoned leaders to fill two mid-term vacancies, but Koshyari did not approve of it. The tenure of the two seats would have ended on June 6, 2020. Meantime, to continue in the CM’s office six months after taking oath, Uddhav Thackeray needed to be a member of either house before May 27, 2020. On April 10, the Cabinet held a meeting under DCM Ajit Pawar and recommended to the Governor that Uddhav should be nominated to the Upper House in one of the two vacant posts. The governor didn’t respond. The government repeated its recommendation on April 27. Finally, the Centre intervened, and elections to the nine vacancies (other than governor’s quota) were conducted in ‘locked-down’ May 2020. Thackeray was elected before the deadline, but not before going through severe turbulence. It took another six months for the MVA to recommend the governor’s quota nominees to the 78-member house. The recommendations were put into cold storage. Fuelled by the delay in appointments and several other politics-loaded issues, the friction occurred frequently between the CMO and Raj Bhavan. The MVA has been very vocal against the governor, with the BJP being equally aggressive in defending the Raj Bhavan, which has maintained a studied silence. Will the silence be broken anytime soon? We will have to wait for the court’s next hearing.

The nominees list is said to include the names of Eknath Khadse, Raju Shetti, Yashpal Bhinge and Anand Shinde from NCP’s quota; Rajni Patil, Sachin Sawant, Muzaffar Hussain and Aniruddha Wankar from Congress quota, and Urmila Matondkar, Nitin Bangude-Patil, Vijay Karanjkar and Chandrakant Raghuvanshi from Shiv Sena’s quota. The list was submitted to the governor at Raj Bhavan on November 6, 2020. The MVA ministers who met Governor Koshyari that day did not disclose the names, but confirmed the submission of the government’s recommendations and the cabinet’s resolution in a sealed envelope. They said the government had fulfilled all the legal aspects of finding the nominees eligible under Article 171 (2) (2) and 171 (5) of the Constitution, under which the governor can appoint persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, co-operative movement and social service to the upper house.

It is not for the first time that seasoned politicians, who were either defeated in the elections or could not be given poll tickets, have been nominated to avail of the governor’s quota. There have been a few exceptions in the past though. Barring a couple of candidates, the MVA’s list is no different in political terms. After being a member of the lower house for many terms and being ignored by the BJP after his resignation from the BJP government, Khadse’s nomination has come as a reward for switching over to the NCP. Shetti, ex-Lok Sabha MP of Shetkari Sanghatna, lost the 2019 polls, and later allied with MVA. 

Academician Bhinge got over 1.5 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha polls from Nanded as Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) candidate. Congress’s ex-CM and sitting MP, Ashok Chavan, was defeated from Nanded because of division of votes. So, Bhinge is a prized catch for NCP’s future politics. Shinde is a folk singer from an underprivileged background. Congress’s veteran Patil is being rehabilitated while young leader Sawant, after losing assembly polls, gets a pat on the back for being a consistent spokesperson. Hussain has been in the upper house for many terms, but didn’t prove lucky in successive Assembly polls. Music composer and singer Wankar (BSP and VBA) contested against Congress in Vidhan Sabha polls and got away with a good share of votes despite losing. Sena has ex-Congress leader Urmila Matondkar in its rank. Motivational speaker Bangude-Patil, and Vijay Karanjkar are die-hard Shiv sainiks. They have been recognized by the party leadership. A career politician Raghuvanshi is an import from the Congress. If the Raj Bhavan wishes so, there are chances that Article 171 (2) (2) and 171 (5) of the Constitution could be dissected and debated for political appointment and eligibility for it. It would be interesting to see in the light of the Centre-State tussle how the Raj Bhavan engages the MVA and legal luminaries arguing against its stand.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore
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