| But after egging on Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee yesterday to refer the issue to the President for a reference, it's rejection of that option let down the Speaker so badly that an angry Chatterjee has convened a meeting of presiding officers of all Assemblies in the country on March 20 to discuss whether the Supreme Court is indeed within its rights to pass orders on the functioning of a state legislature. |
| The decision not to refer the matter to the President was taken at a meeting this morning at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence. The meeting, which was also attended by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, decided that approaching the Supreme Court again on a presidential reference would be counter-productive. |
| Although this could not be confirmed, the law minister reportedly had a conversation on the subject with Chief Justice RC Lahoti and advised the government against the course of action that the Speaker had spelt out after an all-party meeting (minus the Bharatiya Janata Party). |
| The Speaker, reportedly on advice from the Congress had last night, suggested that a presidential reference might be made to seek the apex court's opinion so that constitutional balance could be restored. |
| The meeting at the Prime Minister's residence was also attended by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Law Minister Bharadwaj, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh besides Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel. |
| What led the Congress to change its mind? The issue was hotly debated and the political bottomline in the Congress was the NDA should not be allowed to form a government in Jharkhand. Everything else flowed from this, including the antics in the Jharkhand House today. |
| According to a senior Congress leader, instructions had been sent that the House not be allowed to function today, if only to spite the apex court, which had moved the date for the Shibu Soren government's floor test from March 15 to March 11. |
| Meanwhile, the BJP had its own meeting on the legal recourse the party could take to ensure the apex court's order, which it interprets to be in its favour, was not thwarted. |
| The BJP criticised the action of the Speaker. "The Speaker has become not only a party but a pillar. He has gone one step beyond the government and is trying to force it to go in for a presidential reference," BJP deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Sushma Swaraj said after a 45-minute meeting of the NDA, called to discuss the Jharkhand issue and the Speaker's stand. |
| The meeting, chaired by LK Advani, was attended by NDA convener George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar (JD-U), Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Pramod Mahajan (alla BJP), Yerran Naidu(TDP), Dinesh Trivedi (Trinamool Congress), Sharad Joshi (Shetkari Sangathana),BK Tripathy (BJD) and VS Bajwa (Akali Dal) among others. |
| Arun Jaitley said the NDA would meet the Governor Syed Sibtey Razi and ask him to call former BJP Chief Minister Arjun Munda to form the Government, after which the BJP-JD(U) alliance would prove its strength on the floor of the House. |
| The NDA has also decided to approach President APJ Abdul Kalam tomorrow regarding the breach of the Supreme Court's orders by the ruling alliance in not holding the trust-vote today. The NDA said it would urge the President to ensure that the constitution is enforced in the state. |
| Jaitley said Munda and his lawyers would discuss the legal aspects and ask the Supreme Court for 'action and relief'. Finally, if all else fails, the NDA has decided to 'vociferously raise the issue' in both houses on March 14 if the issue was not resolved by then. |
| Backing off, then backlash |
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