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Centre's plan to dismiss Rabri Devi comes unstuck

George Iype in New Delhi

The row over the attacks on Christians in many parts of the country, especially in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat, has forced the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to shelve its long-thought-out plan to dismiss the Rabri Devi regime in Bihar.

Last Friday, Bihar Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari submitted his latest report on the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state to Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani. Bhandari also recommended the imposition of President's rule in Bihar.

Top Union home ministry officials, who have examined Bhandari's report following the massacre of 23 dalits by the Ranvir Sena, admitted that given the increasing caste clashes and killings in Bihar, this is an opportune time for the Centre to dismiss Chief Minister Rabri Devi.

But an official monitoring the law and order in Bihar disclosed that Vajpayee and Advani have expressed their inability to act against the Rashtriya Janata Dal government because of the attacks on Christians in states like Gujarat and Orissa.

"The government is wary of invoking Article 356 in Bihar for the simple reason that President K R Narayanan can reject it on the grounds that law and order in Gujarat and Orissa is as bad," he told Rediff On The NeT.

According to reports reaching the home ministry, the Bihar government has been encouraging private armies like the Ranvir Sena because caste wars secure political mileage for RJD president and former chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Officials believe the Vajpayee government's move to axe the RJD government would have succeeded this time because of the spate of killings in the state in recent months. Already, the home ministry has built up "a fit case" to sack Rabri Devi. But the rising tide of anti-Christian violence has compelled the government not to take a chance.

President Narayanan had returned the Union Cabinet's proposal to sack the Bihar government in September last year, arguing that the law-and-order situation in the state did not warrant invocation of Article 356.

The President had also quoted the recommendations of the R S Sarkaria Commission and the Supreme Court judgment in the S R Bommai case to suggest that the Centre should have first issued a formal warning to the state government.

Since then, the Centre has issued at least three warning letters -- the latest on January 28 -- to the Bihar government, asking it to cleanse the state of mafia elements, criminals and anti-socials, and improve law-and-order within a specified time.

Though the Centre has thus cleared the decks to dismiss the Rabri Devi regime, it now anticipates trouble from the President, the Opposition parties, and some members of the ruling coalition if it tries to invoke Article 356.

According to Sushil Modi, BJP politician and leader of the Opposition in the Bihar assembly, there is no need to compare Bihar with Orissa or Gujarat on law and order. "While the central government has instituted a judicial inquiry into the killing of the Australian missionary in Orissa, there has not been a single murder in Gujarat despite the hue and cry about the attacks on missionaries," he told Rediff On The NeT.

Modi insists Bihar is a "fit case" for central intervention because the situation in the state has become very explosive in the wake of the killings by Ranvir Sena activists in Jehanabad district.

But despite such pressure from Bhandari and the party's Bihar unit, it is unlikely that Vajpayee and the BJP leadership will muster the courage to approach the President a second time.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan official said the President's perception of law and order in the states has also changed in the last few months. "The law-and-order situation in many states has deteriorated and the President feels that in the new political context, dismissing the state governments concerned is not the answer," he told Rediff On The NeT.

The official said the President is "concerned" that the Union home ministry, which is the apex body to monitor law-and-order in the country, has failed to take effective charge of the situation.

While the President had termed the killing of the foreign missionary and his two young sons as a "monumental crime", he also altered his New Year's message to condemn the anti-Christian attacks in Gujarat.

The Christian attacks row

The Pakistan cricket tour

The Bihar state page

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