AP heading towards Prez rule?
HYDERABAD: If the logjam in the Assembly over the Telangana bill continues beyond January 10, the Centre might be forced to go in for imposition of President's Rule in the State.
Seemandhra legislators have been continuously stalling the proceedings of the House and preventing the discussion on the draft AP Reorganisation Bill, 2013.
Though President Pranab Mukherjee had sent the draft bill to the Assembly on December 12, the debate could not start due to ruckus in the House.The Assembly session which was adjourned on December 20 resumed on January 3, but going by the utter chaos in the House, it is unlikely that there will ever be any discussion on the bill before January 10, when it gets adjourned for five days.
The Assembly has time till January 23 to send its views to the President on the draft bill. Highly placed sources told that the Centre is contemplating imposition of President's Rule by placing the State Assembly in suspended animation, if the present uncertainty continues to prevail even after January 10.
And the man who is guiding the Centre in this regard is said to be Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj, a legal luminary who had served the second-largest tenure as Law Minister since Independence.
Sources said the Centre has been seeking the legal advice of Bhardwaj from time to time on the Telangana issue. And he has been providing legal inputs to his Andhra Pradesh counterpart ESL Narasimhan on handling the situation arising out of the State bifurcation through his advisor Vikas Bhansode, an eminent Supreme Court lawyer.
For the past few weeks, Bhansode had been frequently visiting Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad to advice on the bifurcation issues. He was in Hyderabad a couple of days ago, too and is understood to have favoured the need to recommend President's Rule in the State, if the chaos continues to prevail in the Assembly over the draft bill.
Sources said Bhansode had also hinted at the possibility of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy himself creating such a situation that might lead to the breakdown of Constitutional machinery in the State ' like putting in his papers along with recommending dissolution of the State Assembly after January 23.
The advisor of Karnataka Governor reportedly told Narasimhan before any such a situation arose, the latter could use his discretionary powers and recommend imposition of resident's Rule in the State by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution.
Even if the Chief Minister recommends dissolution of the Assembly before that, the Governor is not bound to accept the recommendation, Bhansode is learnt to have told Narasimhan.
'If the Governor finds that it is impossible to carry on the administration of the State according to the provisions of the Constitution, he can report about the failure of the Constitutional machinery in the State to the President under Article 356 and under Article 356(1) of the Constitution, the President may proclaim the President's rule in that State,' sources said.
Interestingly, Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha also told media persons that there would be major turn of events in the State politics after January 10. And since there is no possibility of any discussion on the Telangana bill, the Centre would straightaway introduce the draft bill in Parliament during its special session to be held in the first week of February and get it passed, sources added.
News Posted: 5 January, 2014
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