Mamata Banerjee's call for President rule in Bengal unites Opposition

NEW DELHI: A combined Opposition onslaught against the government over its indulgence towards the Trinamool demand for crossing the constitutional red mark in West Bengal on Monday forced the government to clarify that the visit of a central team to Kolkata was only for ensuring better coordination between the state and the Centre.

BJP, SP and BSP came to the aid of the Left — which has been alleging plans of some constitutional adventurism by the Centre — and asked the government not to do anything that would go against the federal structure. On Monday, Parliament was again converted into a battlefield by the Trinamool Congress and the Left to score their “local” political points.

The government has been under pressure from Trinamool to demonstrate its “unhappiness” over the law and order situation in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee had met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidambaram last week and placed her party’s demand for immediate intervention by the Centre to set things right in West Bengal.

When both Houses assembled on Monday morning, the Left parties rushed into the well to protest against the visit of the central team. This move, they said, violated the constitutional provisions. “The maintenance of law and order is a duty of the state government. The Centre is entering into an area that does not belong to it,” the Left leaders said.

In what signalled an unwritten coordination among Opposition parties, L K Advani and Arun Jaitley supported the stand taken by the Left.

“We have ideological differences with the Left. But we would like to be assured that the central team to West Bengal has not gone at the behest of UPA’s alliance partner, which was trying to interfere in the functioning of the state government,” Mr Jaitley said.

Home minister P Chidambaram, who made identical remarks in the two Houses, clarified that the government has no intention to impose President’s rule in the state. “Post-Bommai, there is no scope...(for imposition of central rule). The move to send the central team is entirely non-confrontational. There is no need to view it through the prism of Article 356,” Mr Chidambaram said in LS. In 1994, the Supreme Court in the S R Bommai case had ruled that no government can be dismissed without being given an opportunity to prove strength on the floor of the House.