22 DAN MLAs petition Governor withdrawing support
Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 31
With Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio away attending the meeting of the National Development Council in New Delhi, serious trouble awaits the survival of the DAN ministry headed by him as twenty two DAN MLAs have reportedly signed a letter withdrawing support to Rio’s government. According to reliable sources, the letter expressing ‘no confidence’ has been submitted to Governor K. Sankaranarayanan yesterday evening even as speculations were doing the rounds for some time now of an impending fall of the Rio Ministry. At the time of filing this news report, Rio rushed to the State Capital. Interestingly, he was accompanied by the Speaker of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly who is reported to have returned from a trip abroad.
According to sources, of the 22 DAN MLAs, 17 are from the ruling NPF while two are from the JD (U) and three Independents. However this sudden development has now led to complete uncertainty of the political situation with various factors coming into play. The Governor it has been reported is likely to ‘wait and watch’ before deciding on his next move. As per the situation, the ball is now in the court of the Speaker who has to ascertain on whether the NPF MLAs in particular will come under the preview of the Anti-Defection Law. According to the arithmetic of the numbers now available with this daily, the seventeen NPF MLAs stand to be automatically disqualified because the number with this breakaway group falls short under the new Anti-Defection Law, which is two-thirds of the official thirty-two member NPF Legislative Party. However, the new law while disallowing ‘splits’ has left the question of ‘mergers’ untouched.
CRaj Bhavan Kohima is reportedly closely watching the next move of the Speaker and if the latter disqualifies the breakaway NPF MLAs, the Governor according to reliable sources is likely to impose President’s Rule. However, inside sources within the political establishment, disclosed to The Morung Express that the Speaker has been cautioned ‘not to take this step’ in order to avoid imposition of Central Rule. Sources said that the dissident group may end up forming the government with support from the Congress if in case Central Rule is avoided.
Whatever is the developing situation, political sources disclosed that the Rio government will not last this time and that there is only two possibilities i.e. either Presidents Rule or the dissident group forming the next government with Congress support.
It may be mentioned that as per the new Anti-Defection Law henceforth, any MLA or group of MLAs who “split” a party lose the membership of the House they belong to. They come within the purview of disqualification based on defection. While political commentators and jurists believe that this will put an end to the menace of defections, retail and wholesale. However, the problem is far from over because the Constitution (91st Amendment) Act has left paragraph four of the Anti-Defection Law dealing with mergers untouched. Paragraph four says a member or members of a political party can merge their party with another party or members of two political parties can merge to form another political party. The only requirement here is that the merger will be “deemed to have taken place if, and only if, not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger”. In other words, in the earlier scheme of things, one-third of a legislature party could break away to form a separate group. Now, two-thirds of the legislature party can get together and “merge” their party with another party or form a new party along with members of another party. In short, earlier you needed one-third to “split” a party, now you need two-thirds to “merge” your party with another.
The big question now is whether the breakaway DAN MLAs including the seventeen NPF MLAs will be able to forward their case convincingly to the Speaker after which the ball will enter Raj Bhavan for the Governor to take the next logical step. Either way the Rio Ministry is in serious trouble.
.jpg)
