Congress: Give Nabam Tuki ‘reasonable time’ for floor test

The Congress is keeping its cards on Arunachal Pradesh close to its chest after the governor on Friday rejected chief minister Nabam Tuki’s plea for deferring the floor test which he was directed to take by Saturday to prove his majority in the Assembly.

The party officials, who are claiming that the Congress has 45 MLAs in the state Assembly arguing that violation of the party whip could disqualify th-em, are tightlipped on whether they can approach the Supreme Court on Saturday. They said acting governor Tathagata Roy has to give “reasonable time” to Mr Tuki in light of the Supreme Court’s recent landmark judgment on imposition of President’s Rule in Arunachal.

“The governor cannot convene a session unilaterally. There are SC judgments in this regard. The Sarkaria Commission says at least 30 days have to be given for holding such a test. The governor can only advise the CM, who in consultation with his council of ministers, can convene an assembly session,” a senior Congress leader said.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said the party is ready for a test but the session has to be convened on government’s advice. Ask-ed if Congress was ready for a floor test on Saturday, he said the Governor cannot dictate on when to convene the Assembly session.

“The Supreme Court has said that it has to be decided between the chief minister and the Speaker and advise the Governor when to call the House. It is not the Governor’s prerogative to call the House,” Mr Sibal told PTI.

“We are ready for a floor test on July 24 or 25,” he said, adding that it cannot be held on Satruday.

Meanwhile, responding to questions on developments on Arunachal,the AICC spokesman Manish Tewari on Friday said the Central Government again, through the Governor, is now trying to undermine the essence and the spirit of the Supreme Court judgment.

There are clearly laid down recommendations both in the Sarkaria Commission Report, if I remember correctly and various other pronouncements of the Apex Court that reasonable time must be given to the chief minister or to a political party to prove its majority on the Floor of the House.

“ The manner in which the Governor is trying to hasten the decision, ostensibly on the instructions of the Central Government, again orchestrating a command performance, is nothing but a very crude attempt to undermine the very strong indictment of the government by the Supreme Court,” he said.

Mr Tewari,the former Union minister, further said “ First you (Centre and BJP) use the number game, misuse the office of the Governor to topple a democratically elected Government, then you misuse the instrumentalities of the State in order to change the facts on the ground and then you claim that you are democratic. In fact, if you look at the entire Arunachal episode, from day one, right till what the Governor has been doing today, it is the most flagrant attempt at subverting the Constitution repeatedly ad-nauseam.”

The Congress leader said the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Arunachal Pradesh following the decision of both —the High Court and the Supreme Court in the case of Uttarakhand, once gain reinforces the fact that the Narendra Modi government has absolutely no respect for democracy. They have misused and abused the instrumentalities of the State including the Office of the Governor in order to undermine democratically elected opposition governments. Now, for the first time the Supreme Court actually restored the clock back to December 15, 2015 and put the incumbent chief minister back into office.