'You ... Are Avoiding Your Accountability'

From 
L.K. Advani
Leader of Opposition
Lok Sabha

To
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Honourable Prime Minister of India
7, Race Course Road
New Delhi

Honourable Dr. Manmohan Singh ji,

I am writing this letter to you with a deep sense of anguish and outrage aboutthe latest developments in Jharkhand.

A gross, brazen and egregious assault on the Constitution and the edifice of ourdemocratic system was mounted in Jharkhand on March 1 by none other than thehighest Constitutional authority in the state, its Governor Shri Syed Sabti Razi.All, or at any rate many important facts in this matter, as also their sequence,are by now known to one and all. They do not bear repetition here. Suffice it tosay that the action of the Governor to install a minority government in Ranchi,disregarding the incontrovertible claim of the BJP-JD(U) alliance to be giventhe first chance to form the government, has been roundly condemned by everyshade of democratic opinion in our country. The illegality of his action wasconclusively exposed when a majority of MLAs (41 in an Assembly of 81)supporting a BJP-JD(U) government presented themselves before RespectedRashtrapatiji yesterday. I notice that, belatedly at least, your party and someparties supporting your government have sought to distance themselves from theGovernor's indefensible decision.

What has prompted me to write this letter is my sense of duty, as the Leader ofthe Opposition in the Lok Sabha, to urge upon you the imperative of fixingaccountability for what has happened. Accountability and responsibility are thevery heartbeat of democratic governance. Like millions of my countrymen, I amastounded that no one in either the Central Government or in the leadingconstituent of the UPA is willing to take responsibility in the face of so majoran onslaught on the Constitution.

I recall that when I phoned you on the afternoon of March 1 to convey my concernover the delay in the Governor giving Shri Arjun Munda, leader of the BJP-JD(U)combine, the first opportunity to form the government, you said that you wouldspeak to your Home Minister in this regard. Later in the day, Shri Vajpayeejialso spoke to you to convey the same concern.

On the night of March 1, I spoke to Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil to conveythe information I had received that the Governor had made up his mind to inviteShri Shibu Soren, leader of the JMM-Congress alliance, to form the governmentthe following day. He did not give any specific reply, but kept on insistingthat whatever the Governor would do, "he would do within the framework ofthe Constitution".

I take strong exception to the fact that, when the Opposition MPs repeatedlytried to raise the issue of Jharkhand developments in Parliament on March 2,neither you nor the Home Minister came to the House to allay our apprehensionsand to assure the Nation that the Government would not let anythingunconstitutional happen in Ranchi.

Dear Prime Minister, notwithstanding my personal regard for you, I amconstrained to say that you and senior members of Parliament are avoiding youraccountability to Parliament whenever a matter surfaces relating tocontradictions in the UPA coalition - and such matters have surfaced frequentlyin the past nine months. As a result, the canon of collective responsibility ofthe council of ministers has become a casualty in your government.

In light of the sheer brazenness of the assault on democracy in Jharkhand, Idemand that the government immediately institute a probe to determine who wasresponsible for it and take suitable action against the guilty. The followingquestions, in my view, are germane to the probe.

1) Two members of your Council of Ministers were camping in Ranchi throughoutthe sordid developments. As per media reports, they were in regular interactionwith the Governor on the one side and with the state leaders and MLAs of theCongress, JMM, other parties and independent MLAs. I am willing to believe thatthese ministers were not briefing you about the developments. However, thepeople of this country have a right to know what they were doing in Ranchi andwho in Delhi, if any, they were taking instructions from. Or, are we to believethat the two ministers were "free agents" who were acting in their owndiscretion - much the same way the Governor claimed he was doing?

2) When did Shri Shibu Soren, who was a minister in your Cabinet, tender hisresignation? If he did so before being sworn in as the Chief Minister, which Ipresume he did, did you as the Prime Minister ask him why he was resigning? Didthat give you any inkling about the happenings in Ranchi? With the informationavailable to you at the time, did you satisfy yourself about theconstitutionality of the installation of a JMM-Congress government?

3) Was the Home Ministry keeping track of what was going on in Ranchi? If yes,did the Home Minister convince himself that all that was "within theframework of the Constitution"? If he was not so convinced, did he exercisehis duty by conveying his apprehensions to the Governor?

4) Shri Shibu Soren has issued advertisements in the newspapers of Jharkhandyesterday thanking the Congress President and Chairperson of the UPA for hersupport to him in forming the government. How does this square up withprotestations on behalf of the Congress and UPA leadership that the JharkhandGovernor acted on his own? Is this not an attempt to make Governor Shri Razi ascapegoat in this sordid episode?

I await an early response from you, Honourable Prime Minister.

Regards,

Yours sincerely,

L.K. Advani