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March 30, 1998 ELECTIONS '98 COMMENTARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL DEAR REDIFF THE STATES YEH HAI INDIA! ARCHIVES

UP speaker in the eye of a storm over ruling on BSP defections Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow Someone aptly called UP, ulta pradesh since things can turn topsy-turvy here in no time, often catering to the whims and fancies of politicians and law-makers. But, of late, even those holding constitutional positions have failed to keep themselves above the charge of petty-politicking. If yesterday it was a governor who blatantly displayed his biases and prejudices in actions and utterances, today it is the speaker, whose decision to granting recognition to a splinter group of the Bahujan Samaj Party has plunged him in the eye of the storm. So far widely regarded as 'upright, knowledgeable and incorruptible', UP assembly Speaker Keshri Nath Tripathi was rated as someone who firmly believed in calling a spade a spade. Constitutional experts and political observers in Lucknow had begun to equate Tripathi with stalwarts who had distinguished themselves as incumbents of this august office. But that was all over with one stroke of his pen as he ratified the defection by 19 BSP legislators from its 67-member contingent in the UP assembly. The grossly unconstitutional act of BSP legislators on October 20, 1997 was legitimised with the speaker's seal five months later, on March 25, 1998. Tripathi's contention in doing so appeared too simple and straight to take him a good five months. But the defectors too found a convenient way to circumvent the anti-defection law, that prescribes disqualification from membership if the split in any political party or group was less than one-third of the total number of members of that outfit. Significantly, the speaker's entire verdict rests on an unauthenticated statement by one of the defectors, Sardar Singh (who has now been rewarded with a ministership in the 95-member jumbo Kalyan Singh council). He contended that on that fateful day (October 20) that there were 26 MLAs out of the party's 67, who were opting out of the BSP. But nobody, including the speaker himself, ever saw these 26 legislators. Sardar Singh was taken for his word and that did the trick. In fact, on that day, not more than 12 BSP defectors were visible. And predictably each one of them got sworn in as minister, to be followed by another batch of seven. Now even if all the 19 were to be counted, they would still fall well within the purview of the anti-defection law, which could be bypassed only if the defectors could muster up a minimum numerical strength of 23. So while the defectors found a convenient way by floating an imaginary figure of 26, the speaker chose to readily believe them without even asking for any concrete evidence, before according them legitimacy as the Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party. As for BSP vice-president and former UP chief minister Mayawati's argument that these MLAs had in any case violated the whip issued by her on March 20, Tripathi managed to find yet another 'convincing' answer. And thus, according to him, 'in the first place, there were no rules, regulations, bye-laws, constitution or resolution of the party to prove that Mayawati was authorised to issue a whip, and even if she could be believed to have done so, it became infructuous, meaningless and stood superseded in the wake of violence that was evidently instigated by her'. Tripathi relied on video recordings of the assembly proceedings of that day, that allegedly showed Mayawati inciting trouble in the house. However, even as Tripathi pronounced his ruling, amid much uproar and anger, leaving the BSP with no option but to seek judicial intervention in the case, he clearly looked somewhat perturbed and jittery all along. Even before he ratified the defections, he had warned all those leaders of non-BJP parties who were accusing him of playing to the BJP tune that if they continued to attack him in this manner over the proceedings in the BSP defection case, he would make it an issue of breach of privilege of the House. His jitteriness was visible in some of his subsequent actions as well. The conscientious man in him surely led him to vent his inner feelings in castigating all and sundry, and mediapersons have become his chosen target. While Star News was taken to task for referring to the UP assembly as 'notorious' -- perhaps because of the fracas that had been witnessed twice over the past three years -- newsmen have been snubbed for asking uncomfortable questions even at press conferences. And to top it all, much of whatever happened in the House on the day following the speaker's pronouncement, was expunged from the records. Constitutional expert D N Mithal, who had been the assembly secretary for 16 years, described the whole affair as 'most unfortunate' and one that had 'undermined the dignity of the House'. He goes on to point out, "What has been done simply reflects the futility of the anti-defection law, which surely needs to be reviewed and provided new teeth." For those who had keenly observed a highly mature Tripathi over the years -- both as a leading constitutional lawyer in the Allahabad high court and as speaker of India's largest (425-member) assembly, "political circumstances have perhaps forced the birth of a transformed man in him." They see not much difference between what was done by Tripathi in the present case, and what one of his predecessors, Dhani Ram Verma did some two-and-a-half years ago, when the latter went all out to blatantly bail out the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP government. "The only difference was visible in the manner everything was carried out; while Verma was rather crude in his ways, Tripathi attempted to give it a legal camouflage to make it look legitimate and neat," they aver. Tripathi, however, still asserts, "I have done no wrong, and have clearly gone by the rule book." Tell us what you think of this report

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