A third outrage

The dissolution of the Bihar assembly, elected a scant three months ago but out of which no government could be born because it was badly hung, could have been done at any stage in the last two months, once it became clear that no government could be formed.

Leaving newly elected legislators in limbo for so long, without any sign of a breakthrough, was asking for someone to start some games and the National Democratic Alliance, ever the more alert (as it was in Goa), embarked on such.

Predictably, the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre has reacted and nipped the whole thing in the bud, provoking howls of protest from the thwarted NDA.

Both sides have claimed that Constitutional law is on their side, and each has accused the other of skullduggery. Both are right and both are wrong.

But what about those holding Constitutional office? The governor of the state has cited horse-trading, which may well have been a fact but is certainly not proven.

Having enjoyed the stalemate till now, and allowed his family members to meddle with the administration, Mr Buta Singh has not done justice to the office he holds""any more than his counterparts did in neighbouring Jharkhand and Goa.

It is no coincidence that the end result is that President's rule continues for another four or five months, which means that Mr Singh continues to enjoy virtually untrammelled executive power.

As for his masters in New Delhi, the haste to dissolve the assembly and get the President to sign on the dotted line while on a state visit to Russia, displays a mean and ignoble willingness to misuse Constitutional provisions merely to thwart the competition.

And since this has become a pattern, the greater blame rests with the UPA for playing ducks and drakes with the system in a quite barefaced manner.

The NDA will now go into the next round of elections with the feeling that it has been wronged, and will campaign on that plank.

Ram Vilas Paswan will go in with considerably weakened forces because close to two-thirds of his legislators are no longer with him; if he is to salvage something from the wreckage of his party, he will have to play a more intelligent game.

The Congress has seen the price it has had to pay for trying to show Lalu Prasad his place and build its own strength in Bihar; neither objective has been served and so it has been driven even more into a gleeful Mr Prasad's welcoming arms.

Mr Prasad knows that he has lost the people's mandate, but may now benefit by leading a stronger alliance into the second election.

The key question therefore is whether the alliance arithmetic will work, or whether the people of Bihar are sufficiently fed up with Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi to vote in the NDA regardless, and with the prospect of Nitish Kumar as chief minister.

One must hope for precisely such an outcome, if nothing else than to usher in change (it can hardly be for the worse), and to give Mr Buta Singh and his masters in New Delhi their deserved comeuppance.