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Governor committed 'constitutional impropriety': Congress

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Congress today alleged that Bihar Governor Vinod Pande has committed 'constitutional impropriety' by inviting the Bihar National Democratic Alliance leader Nitish Kumar to form the government in the state though he lacked the requisite majority.

"The heavens would not have fallen if governor Pande had waited for one more day for our letter of support which we faxed today to the governor in Patna," senior Congress leader and Congress Working Committee member Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.

Mukherjee, however, did not agree with some reporters' contention that the "inordinate delay" in sending the party's letter of support to the governor might have resulted in Pande's summoning the NDA chief minister Kumar.

He contended that the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav's had arrived in New Delhi yesterday and had two rounds of talks with his party. Mukherjee said a common minimum programme had been worked out between the two parties before the Congress agreed to support the RJD's endeavour for government-formation.

"We decided to extend our party's support to the RJD in Bihar when Laloo Yadav came here and asked for it," Mukherjee told the reporters who asked why so many time was wasted before the Congress's letter of support was faxed to the governor in Patna.

"I also want to make it clear that Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sadanand Singh had yesterday rung up Governor Vinod Pande and informed him that we would be faxing our letter of support to the RJD," Mukherjee said. He said that Sadanand Singh had verbally told Pande about the Congress support to Laloo Yadav's party yesterday itself before the letter was faxed.

According to Mukherjee, the governor did not satisfy himself whether Nitish Kumar was in a position to form the government since he had only mustered 146 legislators.

"The governor did not identify the leader in the assembly who could command a majority in the house and he did not take the relevant constitutional procedure to a logical end," Mukherjee said, adding that "the governor had acted in haste".

Mukherjee contended that the governor by his hasty action had "facilitated the politics of manipulation and opened the field for horse-trading in the state".

Pande should have followed the precedent set by President K R Narayanan when the latter had asked for the letter of support of the NDA's MPs in 1996.

Asked to clarify, he heatedly told a reporter that "the Bihar governor should have waited for the Congress letter of support to the RJD."

Later answering questions, Mukherjee said the common minimum programme worked out between the RJD and the Congress came after discussions with Laloo Yadav. This was why the party's letter of support to the RJD was faxed at 1.30 pm this afternoon, he said.

He refused to comment whether his party in Bihar would "stay intact" during the trial of strength in the Bihar assembly. However, when some reporters persisted in their question, he said, "I have no information whether our MLAs in Bihar are defecting."

CWC member and AICC general secretary in-charge of Bihar Mohsina Kidwai said President Narayanan waited for three days for a letter of support from the All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha. The Bihar governor should have similarly waited, instead of unconstitutionally inviting the NDA to form a government, the party general secretary said.

BJP vice-president Jagdish Prasad Mathur said the Bihar governor had not committed any constitutional impropriety because the RJD chief had given the governor only a list of 126 legislators while the NDA had given a list of 146 legislators. Nitish Kumar would be able to prove his government's majority in the state assembly, Mathur said.

Mukherjee said an all-party delegation would visit Rashtrapati Bhavan to register their protest against the Bihar governor.

Under the common minimum programme that the RJD and the worked out between the RJD and the Congress, the two parties have agreed to
(i) provide a corruption free administration,
(ii) impart new dynamism to the agriculture sector,
(iii) begin the process of industrial revival,
(iv) restore financial discipline and transparency,
(v) revive the planning board with particular emphasis on capacity building, and its project formulation, implementation and monitoring,
(vi) improve the functioning of the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation and the Bihar State Electricity Board and restructure them,
(vii) revamp the police administration with a time-bound plan of action to substantially reduce the cases of mass-scale extortion, kidnapping, atrocities etc and
(viii) establish a Rapid Action Force to protect dalits from atrocities.

Besides these, there are seven other provisions.

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