The Gujarat Assembly was put under suspended animation last month by invoking Article 356. The final decision to revive the Assembly is likely to be taken at the UF steering committee meeting which is scheduled to take place next week.
UF leaders say that the judgement by the Supreme Court on the SR Bommai case specifies that Article 356 can be invoked only after there is a trial of strength on the floor of the house.
But no trial took place in the Gujarat Assembly because of the problems created by the legislators. To avoid legal hassles it is imperative that we should revive the Assembly, a UF leader said.
UF constituents, particularly the Left parties, have committed themselves to amend the Article 356, he added. The common minimum programme states that: The scope of Article 356 of the Constitution has been interpreted and circumscribed by recent decisions of the Supreme Court. Article 356 will be amended to reflect these decisions and to prevent the misuse of that Article.
The Left parties have already expressed their reservation on the use of Article 356 in this case as well. Whatever has been done in Gujarat could have been achieved by invoking Article 355. We still demand that article 356 should be repealed, one Left leader said.
Keeping all these factors in mind, UF leaders are veering round to revive the Assembly. We have been exploring the possibility so that there is a trial of strength in the Gujarat Assembly. No decision has been taken so far because of our preoccupation with the UP Assembly elections, a UF leader added.
Meanwhile, the convenor of the Rashtriya Janata Party, Shankarsinh Vaghela, has indicated that he would stake claim to form the government in the state. Vaghelas reported move to head the ministry has come because of the reservations expressed by Dilip Parikh, leader of the rebel BJP group of MLAs, over the candidature of Kashiram Rana. Vaghela is learnt to have made the decision in order to avoid differences within his nascent group. Vaghela has also claimed that 12 of the 18 dissident MLAs, who had crossed over to the BJP, have decided to return to his party fold.
With this he puts the strength of his group at 48.
With the outside support of over 40 Congress MLAs and 11 independents, Vaghela expects to get a comfortable majority in the House with an effective strength of 180. The rebel group expects all this to happen during the Dussehra.
