With the Congress high command silent on the revamp of the State unit, there are speculations that it may be thinking of deferment of the elections beyond the current spell of the President’s rule in Karnataka.

In Karnataka itself there are instances of the President’s rule being extended for a period of one year from March 10, 1971 to March 20,1972 when the then Governor Dharam Vira was the chief of the State. In fact, this is the fifth time that the State has gone under President’s rule.

The latest was during October and November last year when the President’s rule was imposed and the Assembly was kept in suspended animation. When the Yeddyurappa-led government fell, the Assembly was dissolved on November 28, 2007.

The President’s rule is imposed under Article 356 of the Constitution for six months at a time. But there is a provision in the Constitution to extend the rule for a maximum period of three years. However, every six months it has to go to the Parliament for approval.

There is also Article 174 to dissolve the Assembly and impose President’s rule. This will be done when the chief minister, while enjoying majority, will still want to go in for an election. He gets the resolution passed in the Cabinet and then the President’s rule is imposed.

If we go back to the instance when President’s rule was imposed in 1971 and extended twice, it was easy then as Congress was a monolithic party and the voice of dissent was not strong enough.

But now things have changed and the other day senior BJP leader L K Advani commented that the Congress is planning to extend the President’s rule by adopting certain unconstitutional means. That means there is something brewing.

It must also be remembered that Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalswami has said that the Election Commission is ready to hold elections in Karnataka.

Reason for postponement
Now let us look at the reasons for postponement of elections. Even though there will be a bitter debate in Parliament with the BJP and its allies opposing, the only reason that the UPA Government can give is that it would like to hold the elections after completion of the delimitation exercise as it is unlikely that the constituency borders can be redrawn in a hurry.

This could be a compelling reason. Once this decision is taken in the Parliament then it cannot be challenged in the court of law. The Supreme Court or the High Court will not interfere.

Here is the interesting twist. The Parliament is not in session now. The Centre may resort to an Ordinance. This is where the delimitation exercise comes into play. Already the Central Cabinet has approved the recommendation of Delimitation Commission. It has gone to the President for approval.

The thinking of the Congress party would then be to use this and bring out an ordinance in case of Karnataka. This will be done in the hope of getting more seats as the new delimitation is said to favour their party. Going by the same thinking, the President’s rule might be extended by another six months after November so that the Assembly elections will coincide with the general elections scheduled for sometime in early 2009.

This is only a hypothesis on my part. Now what are the legal implications? This is the only way where the President’s rule can be extended citing that a lot of time is required to revise the electoral rolls and redraw the constituencies in a big state like Karnataka.

Given the fact that the Assembly elections in Karnataka should be completed by May 28, it is highly unlikely that constituency borders could be redrawn before the election, is the excuse that could be touted for the extension of President’s rule.

Apart from this they cannot extend the rule for any other reason and if at all it is done then it will have to be done blindly. The President’s rule can’t be there in perpetuation in the State with the Governor running the show with three advisors. This is anti-people and against the federal set up. It will be like sabotaging the Constitution and a fraud on the people of Karnataka.

(The writer, a former law minister, spoke to N Niranjan Nikam.)